MEDICINE
The Word of God even brings health to our body. Proverbs 4:20-22 says, “My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings. Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart. For they are life unto those that find them, and medicine to all their flesh” (Heb.). How can God’s Word make us physically healthy? Illness is often caused by anxiety or anger. If people are made happy, their sickness often disappears. When we get on the Word, joy comes in to heal. The Word kills the bothering things and brings in resurrection. Then we can eat and digest our food well, and our body becomes healthy.
ALL PRAYER AND PETITION
“Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; by means of all prayer and petition, praying at every time in spirit” (Eph. 6:17-18, Gk.). How can we take the Word “by means of all prayer and petition”? It is by pray-reading the Word according to its content. If we are reading on abiding, our prayer must be on abiding; if the Word is on righteousness, our prayer should be about righteousness. “All prayer” means different kinds of prayer according to the portion of the Word we are reading. Whenever we can make time, we should practice this way of taking the Word by praying. Then we shall be fully built up, not only spiritually but also physically.
HELPS TO UNDERSTANDING THE WORD
It becomes apparent when you read the New Testament that its roots are in the Old Testament. The New is both a continuation and interpretation of the Old. Without Hebrews, for example, how could you understand Leviticus? Galatians also is really a cooked and digested part of the Old Testament!
To understand the Bible, then, we need to be thoroughly acquainted with both the Old and New Testaments. In addition, we need the benefit of what so many saints in the past have researched in the Word. When I was young, I spent many hours going from one used book store to another, trying to find helpful, but often rare, books. Reading them was of great help to me.
The fruit of all this research is now available to you in simple form—the Life-study Messages. How appreciative I would have been fifty years ago if they had been available to me! This is why I urge you to get into the Life-study Messages. You will be well nourished if you get into the book of Hebrews, for example, using the sixty or more Life-study Messages as a guide to your study and research. Find time every day, maybe a half hour or so, and you can probably cover the whole book of Hebrews in a month. Like a camel about to make a long journey through the desert, you will store a great deal of nourishment within you and so be helped to grow.
(Life Messages, Vol. 1 (#1-41), Chapter 10, by Witness Lee)
