HOW TO APPROACH BIBLE READING
Come to the Bible not with the purpose of understanding it. Come not even with the purpose of receiving light or the life supply. Just come to the Bible to read it. Eventually, the Lord knows when, light will come, life support will come, secretly, wonderfully, even mysteriously, but not at your time and not in your way.
When I was young, I read a biography that said whenever So-and-so read the Bible, the letters would jump out and the light would shine brightly. I decided to practice that. I opened the Bible, knelt down, and prayed, “Lord, enlighten Your Word. Make some letters jump out. Make some words stand out to me.” Day after day I prayed this way, but not one letter jumped out. They just seemed to sink deeper into the page! In time, though, the light came and the life supply came. In some instances it was thirty-five years later. Since coming to the United States, I have had a great deal of light that came through my reading of forty years ago.
Just come to the Bible for the sake of reading it and contacting the Lord, not for any other purpose. When the right time comes, the Lord will give you the light or the life supply or the understanding.
ANSWERED PRAYER
As with reading the Bible, so with prayer. You may expect that if you pray, the Lord will surely answer immediately in your way. Well, after years and years of being a Christian, I can testify that not a single prayer has gone unanswered. Every one has been answered, but not according to my way nor in my time. Sometimes I did not hear of the answers till after three, or five, or even more years. As I look back over the years, I worship the Lord that whatever I have prayed He has answered in His way and at His time.
Prayer is not in vain. The answers will come. But the answers are secondary. When you pray, you touch the Lord. This breathing in of the Lord is primary.
THE LONG-TERM EFFECT
By taking the time, at least ten minutes a day, to read the Bible and pray, you are contacting the Lord in your spirit through the Word day by day, week after week, month after month, and year after year. You will be growing all the time and will be built up with Christ. Eventually you will know that the Christian life is just living by Christ. In thinking, you will think by Him; in speaking, you will speak by Him. You will express your attitude by Him. He will be your life and your person.
If we practice this, our coming together will not be with a way to meet. We shall come with Christ, in Christ, and into Christ. Our meetings will not be something theatrical, but a living testimony of Jesus, not a performance but an actual testimony of our daily living.
This is what God desires to have. Christianity has been disappointing Him in this for many centuries. Let us receive grace and rise up to say: “Lord, here we are. We want to satisfy You by living You out as a testimony and by coming together in You, with You, and into You.” This is the church life.
(Life Messages, Vol. 1 (#1-41), Chapter 3, by Witness Lee)
