The Precious Word of God, Message Three
The Bible—God’s Feeding
Day 4
II. Why do we eat? (continued)
A. To grow unto salvation
B. To be nourished by the word which we closely follow
1 Timothy 4:6 If you lay these things before the brothers, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus, being nourished with the words of the faith and of the good teaching which you have closely followed.
C. To be strengthened
Psalm 119:28 My soul melts because of grief; / Strengthen me according to Your word.
Read over the outline points and verses above and use these for your prayer to spend time with the Lord in the Word in the morning. After your prayer time, jot down in your notebook one or two things that the Lord touched you with. Afterward, read the following portion, either in your morning time or sometime later in the day. It has also been recorded for you to listen to if you like.
Reading portion:
The Way of Being Nourished
Now that we have seen that we need to come to the Word daily, we need to go on to see the way to come to the Word. According to our experience, there are three ways to come to the Word. The first way is the way of being nourished, which is to spend at least ten minutes to read the Word and five minutes in prayer. We should take three or four verses each time to read and then pray-read. To pray-read is to make reading and prayer one thing, mingling our reading of the Word with our prayer.
In our times of coming to the Word in the way of being nourished, we should not pray for our relatives, our friends, or any situation. Rather, we should simply praise the Lord for His many wonderful attributes and virtues, give Him thanks, or talk to Him from our heart, confessing our real situation. We may pray, “Lord, You are so good. I just love You. Lord, I am sorry that I am cold toward You. Lord, stir up my love for You; kindle the fire within me.”
We do not need to compose prayers, for we already have a wonderful prayer book—the Bible. The words of the verses we read may be used to compose our prayers. If we use the words of the Bible for our prayer, we will touch God, Christ, the Spirit, and life. Moreover, we will be watered, enlightened, sustained, supported, supplied, strengthened, and nourished. Everyone can spend at least ten to fifteen minutes each morning to come to the Word in this way.
(Crucial Elements of God’s Economy, Chapter 1, pp.13-14)
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