HANDLING OUR CHANGING MOOD
You may get up in the morning and find that your spirit is on fire. But when you get home from work that evening, you are as cold as a block of ice. There seems no reason. What should you do? Hallelujah, when your spirit is frozen, you have the Word! You may open to John 4:23. Read it. As you do, your reading will become your praying. You may say something like this: “O Lord, an hour is coming. Hallelujah! Lord, the hour has come and now is.” With just one hallelujah the ice is melted, and you are filled with the very Christ. The coldness is gone. You do not need to deal with it. It just disappears.
The same is true with our temper. In fact, this is the way to take care of your whole Christian life. Do not try to overcome your temper. Just care for Christ. Today He is both the Word and the Spirit. As the Spirit He is in me, and as the Word He is here in this Book. Whether I am hot or cold, the Word remains the same. However I fluctuate during the day, the Word is always the same. It always says the same thing.
If you think this is practicing psychology, try picking up a book about Abraham Lincoln or the thoughts of Confucius. Such books do not provoke such a response in you. Why is the Bible the only book that can stir you? It is because “the words which I have spoken unto you are spirit and are life” (John 6:63). Neither the words of Abraham Lincoln nor those of Confucius are spirit. It is only the words of the Bible that are spirit, for these are the words spoken by God. Hallelujah for this inheritance of the Spirit within and the Word without!
The Spirit may seem to disappear, but the Word always remains. Learn to contact the Lord through the Word. I encourage you to build up a habit of reading the Word daily, preferably in the morning. Make this a legality.
KEEPING SOME LEGALITIES
To live we have to keep some legalities. We must be legal about four things: eating, drinking, breathing, and sleeping. Do you think it is too legal to eat three meals every day? Without such a legality you will soon be ready for a funeral! In order to live in a healthy way, you must eat, drink, breathe, and sleep. I am careful to practice these four legalities. That is why I am still so energetic even at my age. Without such practices, you will die.
Now there are some spiritual legalities you must pay attention to. In order to live and be healthy spiritually, you must practice these daily. Especially you young brothers, you must have at least ten minutes of prayer every day. Then you must also have at least ten minutes for reading the Bible. You can read a chapter in ten minutes. If you insist on keeping these legalities, you will be a strong, healthy Christian. Look to the Lord for His grace to practice them.
THE VALUE OF READING THE BIBLE
Suppose you have no interest in praying or reading the Bible. You have done it for a while and you seem to get nothing out of it. I know the story. If you will keep these two legalities for half a year, you will see the difference it makes. Then if you are still bored, stop for three months. This will give you a comparison. You will see what a loss it is. If you try to put water into a strainer, the water will flow right out. However many times you try, no water will stay in the strainer. But the strainer nonetheless is getting washed. Every day when you read the Bible, it seems that nothing remains. But your being is washed, your person refreshed. If you neglect your Bible reading for ten days, you will see how dull and dirty you feel. Reading the Bible makes you different, whether you sense you have received something or not.
(Life Messages, Vol. 1 (#1-41), Chapter 3, by Witness Lee)
