Eph. 5:18 … be filled in spirit, (19) Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and psalming with your heart to the Lord, (20) Giving thanks at all times for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to our God and Father. Col. 3:16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to God. (17) And whatever you do in word or in deed, do all things in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.
While both portions of the Word [above] speak of how Christians praise and thank God, the reasons they do so are different. One is due to the infilling of the Spirit, while the other is due to the infilling of the Lord's Word. By comparing these two portions of the Scriptures, you can see that both the reading of the Word and prayer are something which men experience in the Spirit. You can never separate the Word from the Spirit, for the Word is the embodiment of the Spirit, and the Spirit is deposited in the Word. Under normal circumstances, whenever you have the infilling of the words of the Bible, you also have the infilling of the Spirit. And once you are filled with the Spirit, you cannot help but pray. There are various forms of prayer, such as giving thanks to God, blessing God, singing praises to God, weeping and calling before God, fasting and supplicating before God, etc. All these prayers are due to the Spirit's moving within man. When you touch the Word, you will surely know the presence of the Spirit within you. Once you realize the presence of the Spirit, you cannot help but pray; otherwise, you are one who quenches the Spirit. Hence, we must always match our reading with prayer. On the contrary, if you pray but do not read the Scriptures or touch the Word of the Lord, your prayer will inevitably come out of your own idea, thought, view, opinion, and inclination. In order to pray out from the Spirit and not out from yourself, you must have the Lord's Word. Now, you can understand why in John 15:7 the Lord Jesus first says, "If you abide in Me and My words abide in you;" then He says, "Ask whatever you will, and it shall come to pass to you." These words show us that if a man learns to always fellowship with the Lord and live in the Lord, His Word will abide in him. One who reads the Word properly is one who abides in the Lord. One who abides outside the Lord is definitely not able to read the Word spiritually; the best he can do is to exercise his mentality to understand; he can never use his spirit to touch the Word. One who abides in the Lord, however, can easily have the Lord's word abiding in him. Since the Lord's word thus abides in him, he cannot help but touch the Spirit, for the Lord's word is spirit. And once he is filled with the Spirit of the Lord, he cannot help but pray. The Lord promises that whatever such a one shall ask, it shall come to pass to him, for at this point, whatever he desires in his heart is not of himself but of the Lord's word and His Spirit that is the Lord Himself. Hence, in order to have the proper prayer, you must first have the proper reading of the Word.
Bible verses are taken from the Recovery Version of the Bible and Words of Ministry from Lessons on Prayer by Witness Lee, pp. 9-10. Both are published by Living Stream Ministry, Anaheim, CA. Please visit us at www.emanna.com. Send comments to: [email protected].
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