Most of us Christians would say we love the Lord Jesus, the One who gave His life on the cross for us. But what kind of love do we love Him with? More importantly, what kind of love does He want us to love Him with?
In Revelation 2, the Lord reveals the love He wants from us. This chapter begins with the Lord’s words of praise to the church in Ephesus for being faithful in many things. Then, in verse 4, He says,
“But I have one thing against you, that you have left your first love.”
This verse shows that the kind of love the Lord Jesus wants from us is our first love.
What is our “first love”?
Note 1 on Revelation 2:4 in the New Testament Recovery Version explains the meaning of the word “first”:
“The Greek word for first is the same as that translated best in Luke 15:22. Our first love toward the Lord must be our best love for Him.”
In Luke 15, the Lord Jesus tells the story of the prodigal son. In verse 22, after being reunited with his long-lost son, the father says, “Bring out quickly the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet.” The father didn’t put just any robe on his son; he clothed him with the best robe he had, the top robe.
By using the same Greek word for first in Revelation 2:4 as best in Luke 15:22, the Lord is making the point that He cares very much about receiving our first, best, love.
Our relationship with the Lord is a relationship of love
The Lord is our Creator and we’re His creation; He’s our Master and we’re His servants. But our sweetest relationship with the Lord is one of love, like that of a husband and wife. He certainly loves us, and we enjoy His love. But He also needs and wants to enjoy our love for Him.
A marriage is a good picture of our relationship with the Lord. Two people marry each other because they love one another. And although husbands and wives do a lot of things for each other, what matters most is that they continue to love one another. What they do for each other should come out of their love for each other.
For example, we can all agree it’s much sweeter when a husband buys flowers for his wife out of his love for her, rather than out of a feeling of duty.
Additionally, a husband and wife want and need the first and best love from each other—not just any kind of love. Their marriage would be weakened, and even damaged, if one of them were to love their job or their friends more than their spouse. What nurtures and strengthens their marriage is loving each other most of all, with their first and best love.
On the Lord’s side, He loves us purely, with an unchanging love. But what about on our side? The Lord doesn’t want the love that’s left over after we’ve loved the world, our career, or anything else. He wants us to love Him first and best.
The importance of keeping our first love toward the Lord
In note 2 for Revelation 2:4, we see something more about the importance of our love for the Lord. The note includes this sentence:
“Nothing but love can keep us in a proper relationship with the Lord.”
How incredible is that statement?
It’s not doing things for the Lord that keeps us in a proper relationship with Him. After all, the church in Ephesus did many good things for the Lord, but He had one thing against them: they had left their first love. Loving Him with our first love is paramount.
Often, we care too much about doing things for the Lord. We may even unwittingly begin to love serving the Lord more than the Lord Himself. But what we do for Him should issue from our fresh and first love for Him, and from our oneness with Him. Loving the Lord with our best love is the top priority of our Christian life.
Note 2 also says,
“The leaving of the first love is the source of all the degradation in the succeeding stages of the church.”
If we experience degradation in our spiritual life, whether as the church or as an individual, we can be sure it’s because we’ve left our first love for the Lord. Loving Him with our best love and not letting our love for Him fade or wane saves us from degradation.
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How can we maintain our first love for the Lord?
It’s not hard to maintain our first love for the Lord, or to rekindle our love for Him. The truth is, the Lord is so lovable. He’s the most attractive and loving person in the universe. Our love for Him can be renewed by just spending time with Him and opening our hearts to Him. For example, we can consecrate ourselves to be with Him first thing in the morning, rather than immediately checking our phones or doing other things.
A simple way to maintain our love for the Lord is to tell Him we love Him. Throughout our day we can quietly say, “Lord Jesus, I love You.” Our spouses may know we love them, but saying “I love you” to each other keeps the love fresh. Likewise, the Lord knows we love Him, but He wants to hear us say it. Telling Him “Lord Jesus, I love You” helps us maintain our first love for Him.
We can also pray, “Lord, You’re my first and best love. I love You more than anything else.” Even if we don’t feel like this is true, we can still pray these words to the Lord in faith. As we do so, we’ll be reminded and strengthened to love Him until eventually, loving Him first and best becomes our reality.
Singing to the Lord helps us love Him with our whole heart. For instance, a song like this encourages us to love the Lord with our best love:
Jesus Lord, You’re our first love; You’re the One we love the best. When our heart is loving You, How we’re filled with Your sweet rest!Lord, we love You for Yourself, Not for what You give or do. Nothing else could e’er compare With the joy of loving you.Lord, we’ve been drawn off by many things; Now we turn our heart back—how it sings! We repent of loving other things— Jesus, Lord, You’re our first love.
To hear the tune and see the words to the whole song, visit this page.
Let’s conclude with a short prayer:
“Lord Jesus, I love You. Increase my love for You day by day. Don’t let me leave You as my first love. Please keep me in a proper relationship with You and remind me to turn to You and love You with my first and best love. Amen.”
If you live in the US, you can order a free copy of the New Testament Recovery Version here.
We know consistent physical exercise keeps our body fit and contributes to our overall well-being. And we also know mental exercise like reading and solving crossword puzzles helps our mind stay sharp.
But did you know that as Christians, we need an additional kind of exercise? For a healthy Christian life, we need spiritual exercise.
Our human spirit
So what do we mean when we say spiritual exercise? We simply mean the exercise of our spirit.
God created us with a body to contact the physical realm, a soul to contact the psychological realm, and a spirit to contact the spiritual realm. Our human spirit, the deepest part of our being, has the unique ability to contact and receive God.
When we first believed in Jesus Christ, we were born of the Spirit. The Lord as the life-giving Spirit came into and was mingled with our spirit. After we’re born again, our Christian life is a life of continuously contacting the Lord, fellowshipping with Him, receiving more of Him, and living by Him.
So how can we contact the Lord?
We can contact the Lord by exercising, or using, our spirit, as John 4:24 tells us: “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit.” Because God is Spirit, we must worship Him in our spirit—our deepest part, where Christ now lives. Our spirit is the key to our relationship with God. Using our spirit is the God-designed way for us to fellowship with Him, know Him, and experience Him.
Exercising our spirit is for a healthy Christian life
In terms of physical exercise, we’re all familiar with the expression use it or lose it. For example, if we stop using a particular muscle, that muscle becomes weaker, and eventually will atrophy. This abnormal condition is the result of neglecting to exercise that muscle. To be strong and healthy, we need to use our muscles.
In the same way, if we don’t exercise our spirit to contact the Lord and fellowship with Him, our spiritual health inevitably suffers. The less we exercise our spirit, the weaker we become. As a result, we’re more prone to sin, the temptations of the world, and other spiritual “ailments.” How can we be healthy—much less grow in the Lord—if we aren’t regularly contacting Him by exercising our spirit?
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Exercise requires effort
Actually, physical exercise benefits us most when it becomes a habit. The same is true of spiritual exercise. But we can’t build up a habit of using our spirit if we only contact the Lord when we’re met with major problems. Exercising our spirit benefits us most when it’s part of our daily life and not a special event or something that we do at isolated times.
And with any kind of exercise, some effort and deliberate action is required. For example, we don’t usually wake up eager to go for a run. Sometimes we have to exert ourselves just to get our running shoes on. Once we take the deliberate action to get started, we’re soon out the door and on our way.
Using our spirit in our daily walk doesn’t come naturally to us, and sometimes it’s even difficult. It’s a lot easier to stay in our anxious thoughts or unhappy feelings when we’re worried or upset. But that’s the perfect time for us to exercise our spirit, to actively and deliberately turn to the Lord to contact Him and receive more of Him right in the middle of our situation.
What are some practical ways to exercise our spirit?
Though there are numerous forms of spiritual exercise, today we’ll discuss five ways:
1. Praying to the Lord
The best way to exercise our spirit is by praying. We may assume the right way to pray is to compose a formal prayer while we’re in a particular place. But we actually can exercise our spirit at any moment, in any place, to speak to the Lord in prayer about anything and everything. In this way, we contact Him in our spirit and receive more of Him.
2. Calling on the Lord
Calling on the name of the Lord is a great way to exercise our spirit. To call on the Lord is simply to call His name, “Lord Jesus, oh, Lord Jesus.” When we call on Him even just for a little while, we’re brought to Him in our spirit. By calling on Him, we’re refreshed and supplied with more of His life.
3. Pray-reading God’s Word
Pray-reading, which is simply to read and pray over the words of the Bible, is an excellent way to exercise our spirit. As we read God’s Word, we can turn what we read into our prayer to the Lord.
Let’s use Matthew 4:4 as an example: “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out through the mouth of God.” We can pray with these words like this: “Lord, man shall not live on bread alone. Thank You, Lord, I do not live on bread alone, but on every word out of Your mouth. Thank You, Lord, for every word! Cause me to hunger for Your Word.”
Pray-reading the Word of God is good exercise for our spirit and nourishes us. Starting our day with this kind of exercise helps us be spiritually fit.
4. Singing
An enjoyable way to exercise our spirit is singing to the Lord. If we feel tired and unhappy when we wake up, singing helps us shake off our sleepiness, brightens our mood, and turns us to the Lord. It activates our spirit and enriches our enjoyment of the Lord.
Throughout the day we can exercise our spirit by singing a hymn or a short song to the Lord. For instance, we can learn and sing this song about Emmanuel to the Lord and be reminded that He is with our spirit.
5. Thanking the Lord
We can also exercise our spirit by thanking the Lord. We can thank Him for saving us, living in us, taking care of us, growing in us, and for everything that happens in our lives. Thanking the Lord, even for small things, makes a big difference in our life. The more we practice thanking Him, the more uplifted and supplied we are.
Notice how these ways involve opening our mouth. Instead of staying silent and locked up in our thoughts and feelings, opening our mouth really helps us to exercise our spirit. As we pray, call, sing, pray-read, and thank the Lord aloud, we contact, receive, and enjoy the Lord.
Let’s all build up a daily habit of exercising our spirit so we can be healthy in our spiritual life and grow in Christ.
If you live in the US, you can order a free copy of the New Testament Recovery Version here.
As Memorial Day approaches, we at BfA would like to take this time to honor our country’s military service members with this salute.
Why we remember
In the bleakest hours of the American Revolution, facing a brutal winter and the waning enthusiasm of his army, General George Washington read to his men the patriotic words written by Thomas Paine in the tract, The American Crisis:
“These are the times that try men’s souls; the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”
General Washington was able to revive his men, using these words to reach into their weary souls and light an ember of hope. This hope continued to burn as the brave soldiers crossed the icy Delaware River with a renewed will to live, persevere, and fight for victory.
More than two hundred years have passed since those simple words were penned. Yet the same courage and resolve to protect this great nation continue to beat in the heart of each service member. And the debt of gratitude, love, and respect is still owed to the guardians of our borders. Many wars have been waged. Men and women have perished. We recognize that the price for our continued safety has not come cheaply.
Today the United States of America is recognized as the land of the free. In this great country one of the most precious liberties we have been afforded is the right to worship God and read His Word. We may take this right for granted, but people around the world suffer persecution for reading the Bible or following the Lord Jesus Christ.
This Memorial Day we remember the men and women who died maintaining the safety and freedom of their families, friends, and countless strangers. We at BfA are deeply grateful to those who sacrificed their all while protecting our freedoms. As our country raises its flag in a silent salute to these courageous service members, we honor and remember them.
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To all who serve
George Washington once said this:
“The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, is directly proportional to how they perceive the veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated.”
We agree with this sentiment and want to take this time to express our appreciation for all those who have served and are still serving. As we sit in our comfortable homes, hearing news reports of our troops, let’s all be reminded to pray for each one. These men and women face adversities daily. We are the beneficiaries of their service.
We at Bibles for America would like to pay tribute to the men and women who fight for our right to worship God and spread the Bible. We encourage service members and their families to order a free copy of the New Testament Recovery Version here.
From all of us at BfA, thank you for your service.
The apostle Paul uses an interesting phrase in 2 Timothy 1:6: “I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you. ”
What is the gift of God in us? Why do we need to fan it into flame? And how do we do that?
What is the gift of God in us?
Verse 7 says, “For God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power and of love and of sober mindedness.” Since this immediately follows verse 6, it’s easy to see the gift of God in us is our human spirit. Note 1 in the New Testament Recovery Version explains what spirit means here:
“The spirit here denotes our human spirit, regenerated and indwelt by the Holy Spirit (John 3:6; Rom. 8:16). To fan into flame the gift of God (v. 6) is related to our regenerated spirit.”
Before we were born again, our spirit was completely dead, cold, and empty. But when we believed in Christ, He as the life-giving Spirit came to be mingled with and live in our spirit. Our regenerated human spirit was ignited with the divine fire of the Spirit of God. The precious gift of God in us is our spirit indwelt by the Holy Spirit. This is the gift we must fan into flame.
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Why do we need to fan our spirit into flame?
Since we have this gift of God in us, why do we need to fan it into into flame? Yes, our regenerated spirit was ignited by the divine fire of the Spirit. But after we’re saved, our zeal for the Lord may eventually fade. We’re not as hot and burning as when we first received the Lord. But Romans 12:11 exhorts us not to be “slothful in zeal, but be burning in spirit, serving the Lord.”
The Lord wants us to be hot, burning in our love to Him and our service to Him. This is why we need to fan our spirit into flame.
An illustration of fanning into flame
To illustrate what it means to fan our spirit into flame, let’s say you go camping. To make a fire, first you lay down some dry twigs as kindling, followed by layers of small branches and logs. Then you light a match and set the kindling afire. The flames spread, and you soon have a nice fire. Warmed by the fire in the cold night air, you eventually fall asleep.
Later, you awaken to find you no longer have a fire burning. But you do have some live embers. You realize you don’t need another match to relight your fire; you just need to get down close to blow on the embers and then fan them. With the increased oxygen, they become even hotter. You add small branches and keep fanning until they’re set aflame. Then you add logs, and soon you have a roaring fire again.
After we’ve been saved for a while, we may no longer be “burning.” Our need is not to “relight” our spirit by getting saved all over again. In fact, this is impossible; once we’re saved, we’re saved forever. Even when we aren’t burning, our spirit is still a “glowing ember” that was ignited with the fire of the Holy Spirit already. We simply need to fan our spirit to give it more “oxygen” until it’s burning once more.
How do we fan the gift of God into flame?
Just as a fire needs oxygen to burn, for us to be burning in spirit, we need the oxygen of the Spirit. Daily we need to open up to breathe in the divine oxygen of the Spirit. By opening our mouth to pray, sing, or call on the Lord’s name, we inhale the Spirit as the divine oxygen. This is how we fan our spirit into flame.
Let’s look at four great ways to do this.
1. Praying out loud
By praying out loud, we can fan our spirit into flame. Instead of praying silently in your head, try praying out loud, even if it’s just softly or quietly at first. God certainly knows what’s on our heart, but the problem is we have a very active mind. One minute we’re here, and the next second, we’re halfway around the globe. Praying out loud helps us focus and subdue all distracting thoughts so we can contact the Lord in our spirit and breathe Him in through prayer.
2. Singing to the Lord
Singing to the Lord is a very enjoyable way to fan our spirit into flame. Instead of staying silent, we can open our mouth in song to the Lord. The more we open our being to the Lord when we sing, the more He fills us. We can start by singing a hymn or a spiritual song while getting ready for work in the morning. We can sing while walking to class or driving our car. Singing to the Lord fills us with the oxygen of the Spirit.
3. Calling on the Lord
Calling on the name of the Lord is a simple way to fan our spirit into flame. Usually we aren’t burning in spirit when we first wake up in the morning. Sometimes it’s even hard to pray, or we don’t know what to pray. But we can simply say, “Oh, Lord Jesus,” or, “Lord Jesus, I love You,” or, “Lord Jesus, thank You for a new day.” As soon as we open our mouth to call on the Lord’s name like this, we begin to fan our spirit into flame.
Sometimes we’re very low. We don’t have to wait for something to change before we can feel better. Even in our low state, we can call on the Lord to contact Him and receive more of Him. In Lamentations 3:55 the prophet Jeremiah said, “I called upon Your name, O Jehovah, from the lowest pit.” Calling on the Lord not only lifts us out of our low pit, but it also causes us to become burning once again.
4. Crying out to the Lord
One of the best ways to open to the Lord and fan our spirit into flame is to cry out to Him. Isaiah 12:6 says, “Cry out and give a ringing shout, O inhabitant of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.” Psalm 47:1 says, “Clap your hands, all you peoples; shout to God with the voice of a triumphant sound.”
Crying out is even louder than praying out loud, and it may seem awkward when we first do it. But we can receive more of the Spirit by crying out to the Lord. The more we shout our praise to Him, the more burning in spirit we become. You can experiment with fanning your spirit into flame by crying out or shouting praises to the Lord for all He is and all He’s done.
We hope this discussion on the phrase “fan into flame the gift of God which is in you” in God’s Word helps you to better understand its meaning. Even more, we hope it becomes your experience more and more with the four ways we touched on.
Let’s practice fanning into flame the gift of God in us every day so we can be burning in spirit!
If you live in the US, you can order a free copy of the New Testament Recovery Version here.
We hope you enjoy this BfA staff member’s testimony of learning how to touch the Lord.
As a child, the Bible was a mysterious book to me because I didn’t have much exposure to it. I think we had a family Bible somewhere in the house, but I can’t remember ever picking it up and reading it.
All I knew about the Bible was that it was a book religious people referred to, and like most Americans, I was familiar with a few stories about Jesus, such as how He was born and how He died. But I dismissed the Bible as irrelevant and out of date.
Until one day!
A friend and I were walking down the street when two young men stopped us to talk about Jesus. At first I was contentious, thinking I knew what they were going to say. But after a few minutes, I was disarmed by a penetrating gospel I had never heard before. I received the Lord Jesus as my Savior that very hour.
The next day I met up with the same Christian brothers and their wives and children at a nearby park. They showed me verses in the Bible to help me understand more about my spiritual birth and how to go on as a believer in Christ. Knowing everything was new to me, they gave me some booklets to read at home.
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I’ll never forget the first booklet I read: A Simple Way to Touch the Lord by Witness Lee. It was astounding! It answered my burning questions in a clear and thorough way. The Lord knew the things I was wondering about and personally spoke to me through every word.
This portion of the booklet helped me immensely through those first crucial days as a believer:
“How can we touch and experience Christ in a practical way as our very life moment by moment? The Lord has given us a simple way. All we have to do is call upon Him, and we will touch Him who is the life-giving supply.”
The booklet didn’t tell me that the next step after I received the Lord Jesus was for me to improve my behavior or work for God. Instead, it gave me a way to touch the God of the universe! Further on in this gem of a booklet, I was attracted by these words:
“When we believed into Him, He as the Spirit came into our spirit, the deepest part of our being, to be our life and everything to us. Today, He as the Spirit is like the air to us—so fresh and so available. When we cry ‘Lord!’ or ‘Amen!’ or ‘Hallelujah!’ we take Him into us as the life-giving breath, supplying us with all the riches of Himself.”
I had never dreamed God could be available to me, just like the air, and that I could breathe Him in. All these statements were based on verses in the Bible, which had suddenly become alive to me. The booklet explained that in John 20:21, the resurrected Lord appeared in the closed room where the disciples were gathered and spoke a comforting word to them, “Peace be to you.” Verse 22 says,
“And when He had said this, He breathed into them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit.”
As I continued to read, my eyes were opened. I saw that the only way He could live in the disciples was to change His physical form and become the Spirit, as clearly stated in 1 Corinthians 15:45: “The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.”
Formerly He was among the disciples, talking to them, and traveling with them in His earthly body. But in resurrection, He became the Spirit who could enter into them. And when I was saved, He came into me.
As marvelous as this realization was, I didn’t experience His being the life-giving Spirit in me until I learned how to touch Him in my spirit. The words in Romans 10:12-13 jumped off the page:
“For the same Lord is Lord of all and rich to all who call upon Him; for ‘whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’”
I was so happy to know I was not only saved and that the Lord Jesus lived in me, but that I could also experience Christ and His salvation every time I call on His name. And it wasn’t complicated or hard to do. It indeed was simple, but I felt like I had made a profound discovery.
One portion at the end of the booklet gives some excellent advice:
“From deep within just breathe, ‘O Lord,’ ‘Amen,’ ‘Hallelujah,’ and you will taste the sweetness and reality of Christ Himself. You will begin to realize more and more that His life is truly a saving life.”
Since I discovered in my late teens how to touch the Lord, many years of breathing in the Lord and calling on His name have gone by. By this simple way, I can testify that I’ve experienced Christ saving me and being rich to me in countless ways!
I’m so happy that this same booklet is included as chapter two in Basic Elements of the Christian Life, vol. 2, and you can find the excerpts above on pages 15 and 18. You can download this book from anywhere in the world here.
If you live in the US, you can order a free New Testament Recovery Version here.
It’s not unusual for us to encounter difficulties in our relationships with others—our spouse, our child, a classmate, or a coworker, for instance. Perhaps we’ve asked the Lord to help us navigate the situation by praying, “Lord, grant me wisdom to deal with my son,” or “Lord, help me be patient with this person.” But in spite of our prayers, we still struggle.
Why doesn’t the Lord give us wisdom or patience? After all, these are good things. To answer this, we have to see that God isn’t interested in giving us things. God gave us His Son, Jesus Christ, to be everything to us.
Distracted from Christ
At the apostle Paul’s time the believers in Colossae were distracted from Christ by matters like asceticism, the keeping of Jewish ordinances, the worship of angels, and elements of Greek philosophy.
Wanting to bring them back to Christ, Paul wrote these words in Colossians 2:16-17:
“Let no one therefore judge you in eating and in drinking or in respect of a feast or of a new moon or of the Sabbath, which are a shadow of the things to come, but the body is of Christ.”
Notes 2 and 3 on verse 17 in the New Testament Recovery Version help us understand this passage:
Note 2 on body tells us, “As with man’s physical body, the body here is the substance. And like the shadow of a man’s body, the rituals in the law are a shadow of the real things in the gospel.”
Note 3 on Christ says, “Christ is the reality of the gospel. All the good things in the gospel belong to Him and are Him.”
Every positive thing, including all the virtues we seek, are merely shadows. The body—the substance, the reality—of those things is a living person, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Like the Colossians, we also can be distracted from Christ Himself to things, even good things like wisdom, love, and patience. We need to realize that Christ wants us to experience Him as the reality of all we need.
Christ in us is our life
To experience Christ as the reality of all the positive things we seek, we need to first realize Christ is living in us. In Colossians 1:27 Paul declares this tremendous fact, “Christ in you.” How wonderful that we redeemed ones actually have Christ living in us, in our spirit!
After stating that Christ is in us, Paul goes on in Colossians 3:4 to use the expression “Christ our life.” The Christ who is in us is now our life. Let’s see more about this in note 1 for Christ in the Recovery Version:
“That Christ is our life is a strong indication that we are to take Him as life and live by Him, that we are to live Him in our daily life in order to experience the universally extensive Christ revealed in this book, so that all He is and has attained and obtained will not remain objective but will become our subjective experience.”
By taking Christ as our life and living by Him, not by ourselves, we can subjectively experience Him in every aspect of our daily life. Instead of expecting to receive something from Him, such as wisdom or patience, we can experience Him as the wisdom or patience we need.
In Colossians 3 Paul speaks of three ways we can take Christ as our life and live by Him.
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1. Colossians 3:15: “Let the peace of Christ arbitrate in your hearts.”
From the Recovery Version note on arbitrate we see that to arbitrate means to “umpire, preside, be enthroned as a ruler and decider of everything.”
When we’re living by Christ, we have a sense of peace. This is a guide to us. As we go through our daily life we can sense whether we have peace or unrest. For example, let’s say we begin to argue with our spouse. The more we argue and try to prove our point, the more we feel unrest. That feeling indicates we’re not living by Christ. If we inwardly pray, “Okay Lord, You’re my life. I want to live by You as I’m with my spouse,” we stop arguing, and the sense of peace returns. The presence or absence of peace tells us whether we’re living by Christ or not. When we feel unease, we can turn back to Him to take Him as our life.
2. Colossians 3:16: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.”
Another way for us to take Christ as our life and live by Him is by letting the word of Christ dwell in us, even richly. This certainly means more than merely reading the Bible in a mental way. Let’s read the note for dwell:
“Lit., to be in a house, to indwell, to inhabit. The word of the Lord must have adequate room within us that it may operate and minister the riches of Christ into our inner being.”
By coming to the Word with our spirit, praying over it, and musing on it, we give the word of Christ the room to dwell in us. Spending time daily to touch the Spirit in the Bible with our spirit allows His Word to inhabit us in a deeper way. Without needing to pray for patience, Christ Himself as patience is ministered into us, and we can live Christ out as our patience.
3. Colossians 3:17: “And whatever you do in word or in deed, do all things in the name of the Lord Jesus.”
The note for name in the Recovery Version explains what it means to do things in the name of the Lord Jesus:
“The name denotes the person. The Lord’s person is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17a). To do things in the name of the Lord is to act in the Spirit. This is to live Christ.”
We can act in the Spirit and live Christ by contacting Him as the Spirit in our spirit. The simplest way to do that is to call upon His name. When we call, “Oh, Lord Jesus,” we get His rich person. Even as we’re interacting with people, we can inwardly or softly call upon His name to remain in fellowship with Him in our spirit to live by Him. He will be to us whatever we need at that time, and then we can live Him out.
If you want to learn about Christ being everything to us from another angle, take a look at our post: Our Spiritual Remedy: The Spirit as an All-Inclusive Dose.
All verses are quoted from the Holy Bible Recovery Version. You can order a free copy of the New Testament Recovery Version here.
A commonly held thought about the Bible is that it’s mainly for studying, and so questions like these arise: How can I study the Bible? What Bible study method should I use? What’s the best Bible study tool?
Although these are good questions to consider, they distract us from one of the most crucial concepts about God’s Word.
The Bible is mainly a book of food
We should certainly read, understand, and even study the Word of God, but one of the most important things we can ever know about the Bible is that God intended it to be food to us. Many verses throughout the Bible express this thought. Here are just a few.
- Psalms 119:103—“How sweet are Your words to my taste! Sweeter than honey to my mouth!”
- Jeremiah 15:16—“Your words were found and I ate them, and Your word became to me the gladness and joy of my heart, for I am called by Your name, O Jehovah, God of hosts.”
- Matthew 4:4—“Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out through the mouth of God.”
- 1 Peter 2:2-3—“As newborn babes, long for the guileless milk of the word in order that by it you may grow unto salvation, if you have tasted that the Lord is good.”
We all know physical food is absolutely necessary to nourish and sustain life. By eating food we live and grow. Eating spiritually is paramount to our Christian life. God gave us His divine life when we were regenerated, and He gave us His Word as our food so we can be nourished and grow in His life.
The concept of the Bible as food revolutionizes our approach to it
If we think God’s only intention in giving us His Word is that we would understand doctrines and teachings, our aim would be to acquire more knowledge from it. We may spend our time reading the Bible in a cerebral way and gain much knowledge in letter from the Bible. Yet we’re still hungry within and spiritually weak.
This is like being hungry and coming to study, but not eat, the delicious dishes prepared by a chef for us. We would never do such a thing with food spread before us. Instead, we would eat it, taste it, and be nourished and satisfied by our eating.
God, our “chef” has prepared His Word as a wonderful feast to nourish us. Seeing this about His Word will revolutionize our approach to the Bible. We’ll approach it not solely or mainly as a book to study but as food to eat so we can be living with God’s life.
The key to eating God’s Word as our food
So how do we eat God’s Word as food?
John 6 gives the account of the Lord’s physically feeding the multitude in a miraculous way. But then He speaks of Himself as the bread of life, the bread that came down out of heaven to give life to the world, and in verse 57 He says we must eat Him to live:
“As the living Father has sent Me and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me.”
The Lord, of course, didn’t mean we should physically eat Him, so He continued in verse 63,
“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words which I have spoken to You are spirit and are life.”
The key here is to see the Spirit gives life, and God’s words are spirit and life for us to eat and live. But how can the words of the Bible be converted from mere black and white letters on the page to spirit and life to feed us and give us life?
Converting the words to spirit and life
To illustrate how to convert God’s Word into spirit and life, let’s consider the use of an app, short for application. An app is a piece of software created and designed for electronic devices like smart phones and tablets. They enable users to perform all kinds of tasks, such as shopping or tracking fitness. Some apps convert one language into another.
Did you know God installed in us an amazing “converting app?” This God-created “app” is our human spirit, the deepest part of our being. Designed specially by God, it has the ability to contact Him and receive His life. Our spirit, when we use it, can convert God’s words into spirit and life to us.
[[Free Study Bible]]
How to use our spirit to convert the Word into spirit and life
The way to use, or exercise, our human spirit is to pray. So the way to use our spirit to convert the words in the Bible into spirit and life is to pray over and with them.
For instance, in our Bible reading we may come across Hebrews 4:12 which says,
“For the word of God is living and operative and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit and of joints and marrow, and able to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”
We may not fully understand what this verse means, but when we use our spirit to pray with these words, they become nourishing food to us. We can eat this verse by praying like this:
“Lord Jesus, thank You, Your word is living! It’s not dead. Oh Lord, Your living word gives me life. And Lord, it’s also operative. Oh Lord, I let it operate in me. And thank You, it’s sharper than a two-edged sword, and can divide my soul from my spirit. Lord Jesus, I want to live in my spirit where you are, not in my soul.”
When we take time not just to read but also to pray over and with the words of the Bible, we receive spirit and life as God intended. God’s Word comes alive to us. Eating God’s Word as spiritual food satisfies us.
For more on God’s Word as food, take a look at these posts: How to Get Life from Reading the Bible, How to Eat the Word of God, and What Is the Bible in its Essence.
If you live in the US, you can order a free copy of the New Testament Recovery Version here.
A BfA staff member shares his experience of singing to the Lord.
In my everyday Christian life I really enjoy praying to the Lord, calling on His name, and speaking about Him to others. All these things give me a way to contact the Lord Jesus throughout my day and enjoy His presence. But one of my favorite ways to touch the Lord is by singing to Him with my spirit. The apostle Paul wrote about singing in 1 Corinthians 14:15:
“I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing also with the mind.”
I of course need to use my mind when singing to the Lord, but this verse shows that I can sing to the Lord with my spirit also. Since my spirit is my deepest part and the means for me to contact and worship Christ, exercising my spirit to sing really brings me into the enjoyment of the Lord.
Singing in the morning
I particularly enjoy singing to the Lord in the morning. Sometimes as I’m getting ready, a song pops into my head, and I start singing it to touch the Lord as I go about my routine. Recently, I’ve sung one song in particular quite often (hear the music at hymnal.net):
“Therefore with joy shall ye draw water Out of the wells of salvation. And in that day shall ye say, Praise the Lord.
Call upon His name, Declare His doings among the people, Make mention that His name is exalted. Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion For great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee.”
At first it seemed a little awkward to sing aloud like this, especially if other people could possibly hear me. But I’ve found it’s such a great way to contact the Lord that now I can’t stop!
Singing to the Lord in the morning is so enjoyable because it’s one of the six ways we can drink Christ as the living water revealed in Isaiah 12. By singing to the Lord in the mornings I “draw water with rejoicing from the springs of salvation” (v. 3)! And verse 5 says,
“Sing psalms to Jehovah, for He has done something majestic!”
For me, the mornings are a critical time to draw water from the wells of salvation. Whether I take a drink or not impacts how the rest of my day goes. I rarely jump out of bed the minute I wake up, and I’m usually groggy and spiritually dry first thing in the morning. Because I haven’t called on the Lord or prayed all night long, I need to contact Him in the morning to be spiritually revived for the day. The easiest way I’ve found to do this when I’m still struggling with just being awake is to open my mouth to sing to Him.
What Isaiah 12 talks about is really true. When I sing to the Lord at the very beginning of my day, I draw from the wells of salvation and take a good, refreshing drink of the living water. I’m revived and strengthened to live in my spirit throughout the rest of the day.
[[Free Study Bible]]
Singing and psalming to the Lord anytime, anywhere
While I love to sing to the Lord in the mornings, I’m so glad I can turn my heart to the Lord by singing to Him at any time. I’ve found that singing to the Lord during the day helps me maintain the flow of the divine life within. In various circumstances throughout the day, I might begin to feel dry, down, or empty. When that happens, though, I often just sing to the Lord to touch Him in a fresh way. I can testify that the Lord has been so real to me at those times.
One particular place I like to sing is in my car. Sometimes instead of turning on the radio, I take the time to sing some songs or hymns to the Lord. These are such sweet, personal times with the Lord, and every time I get refreshed and revived. Sometimes the Lord also leads me to call on Him or to pray. I might end up praying for someone I know, or I might confess something I sense the Lord is speaking to me about. Instead of wasting the time in my car, I’m enlivened when I take advantage of the privacy to turn my heart back to the Lord.
Try it and see
The psalmists knew firsthand how enjoyable it is to sing to the Lord, as we can see in Psalms 104:33:
“I will sing to Jehovah while I live; I will sing psalms to my God while I yet have being.”
If you haven’t experienced singing to the Lord this way, I hope you’ll give it a try! While it’s wonderful to sing psalms and hymns in groups with other believers, it’s also so personal, sweet, and refreshing to sing to the Lord with your spirit at other times during your day. Once you experience how sweet it is to touch the Lord by singing to Him, you’ll find yourself doing it more and more. May we all sing to Jehovah while we live, and sing psalms to Him while we still have breath!
For more on the benefits of singing to the Lord, you can read this post on 5 Marvelous Benefits of Singing to the Lord in Our Daily Life.
All verses are quoted from the Holy Bible Recovery Version. You can order a free copy of the New Testament Recovery Version here.
Before we were saved our heart was hard and cold toward God. We wanted many things, even sinful things, but not God. We felt little affection for Him and had no interest in the things of God.
But God wants to have an affectionate relationship with us. So when we were born again, God not only forgave us and cleansed us of our sins, He also did something in our heart. Ezekiel 36:26 says,
“I will also give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take away the heart of stone out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.”
God renewed our heart of stone and made it soft, “a heart of flesh.” Now our new heart loves God and is inclined toward Him and responsive to Him. With this new heart, God wants us to enjoy all He is in a relationship of love.
Since we all received a new heart when we were saved, why is this loving heart evident in the lives of some but barely detectable in others? How can some of our hearts seem to have become cold and hard, like they were before? How can we keep our heart in its new soft and loving condition?
The need for exercise
Medical science tells us that for our physical heart to be healthy, we need to exercise, even vigorously. But exercise doesn’t come naturally or easily to most of us. Consider what it takes just to put on our athletic shoes and go for a run. Even while we’re running, we have to exert ourselves to keep going and not quit. And exercise isn’t a once for all matter; we have to do it over and over again. But working out regularly isn’t optional if we want a healthy heart.
Similarly, if we want our new heart to be kept in newness, that is, to be kept loving, soft, and responsive toward the Lord, then regular, continued spiritual exercise is needed. This is what makes the difference between whether our new heart remains in newness or goes back to its old condition.
So what is this regular exercise for our new heart? Since our heart is composed of our conscience, mind, emotion, and will, the “workout” our heart needs involves four parts.
[[Free Study Bible]]
1. Exercising our mind to turn our heart back to the Lord
Second Corinthians 3:16 says, “Whenever their heart turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.” Everything begins with turning our heart to the Lord. When we were saved, we first repented and received Christ to begin our Christian life. To repent means to turn, to have a change of mind and direction. We realized we were sinful, and we turned to God.
But even after we’re saved, we still need to keep turning. Our minds are easily distracted and can cause our hearts to turn away from the Lord. Whatever turns us away from the Lord becomes a “veil” to us, keeping us from seeing Him. Similarly, Matthew 5:8 says,
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
To be pure means to be unmixed with anything else. When we’re turned away from the Lord, our heart is impure toward Him. Our focus is split between the Lord and something else. We have two goals in mind, two aims our heart longs after, and we can no longer see clearly. Our future, our career, even our work for the Lord can begin to compete with God in our heart and occupy our mind.
So we need to exercise our heart by praying, “Lord, I turn to you right now.” In fact, in the course of a single day we need to turn repeatedly to the Lord. For instance, we might be thinking about a certain thing and suddenly find we’re away from the Lord, so we need to turn. Later, we might see a billboard that sticks in our head, and we have to turn again. Then we begin to have negative thoughts about someone close to us, and we have to turn yet again.
Again and again, when we realize we’re turned away from the Lord, we need to turn our heart back to Him. It takes regular exercise. When we turn our heart from all other things back to the Lord, we’re made single and pure again, and the veils are taken away. This is a daily workout we all need.
2. Exercising our emotion to love the Lord
For us to have an affectionate relationship with the Lord, we need to exercise the emotions of our heart to love Him. We may not think we’re that capable of loving the Lord, but we can remember, He gave us a new heart specifically to love Him! And according to Romans 5:5, His love has been poured out in our hearts. He even told us in John 15:9, “Abide in My love.” Our heart is ready to love the Lord; we just need to start exercising it.
One way we can daily give our heart a “love workout” is by telling the Lord out loud that we love Him. What an enjoyable workout! Just as a spouses want to hear these words from each other, the Lord wants us to tell Him, “I love You”—the more often, the better. How wonderful it would be if we were to begin and end each day with, “Lord Jesus, I love you!” We can even say it all throughout the day.
Telling the Lord we love Him not only makes Him happy, it also helps to nurture our own love for Him. Exercising our heart this way keeps us in the sweetness of His love and refreshes our love for Him. We enjoy Him and sense His nearness.
We can also exercise our heart to love the Lord by singing to Him. As we sing to Him, our heart warms and we love Him afresh. For example, we can try singing a song like this. (You can hear the tune here.)
Give yourself to love the Lord.
No other way is so prevailing
And no other way, no other way is so safe.
Give yourself to love the Lord.
No other way is so rich,
And so full, oh so full, of enjoyment.
Each morning we must rise up and say to Him,
“Lord Jesus, I love You.”
Give yourself to love the Lord.
Do not care for anything else;
Just love Him! Do not care!
Give yourself to love the Lord!
We are not our own, Lord;
All we have we give to You.
Lord Jesus! Lord Jesus!
Lord Jesus, we love You!
3. Exercising our will to obey the Lord
We also keep our heart new by exercising our will to be obedient and submissive to the Lord. We do this by saying “Yes” and “Amen” to the Lord when He speaks to us in our daily life.
Perhaps the Lord speaks to us, “Don’t go to that place.” If we ignore His speaking and go anyway, we disobey Him. Repeatedly disobeying God hardens our heart toward Him. But if we go along with Him and say, “Yes, Lord, I won’t go there,” we obey Him. This may be difficult, but when we obey Him, our heart is kept soft and submissive. We enjoy Him and He becomes so real to us, not in theory, but in our actual experience.
4. Exercising our conscience by confessing our sins
We exercise our conscience by confessing our sins to the Lord. Confessing isn’t saying, “Lord, I won’t do that again.” It’s saying, “Lord, I agree with you, that was a sin. I sinned. I was wrong. Forgive me.” Confessing is simply agreeing with God when His light shines on something.
We shouldn’t be afraid to confess, nor should we try to hide our sinful selves from the Lord. A strong believer is a confessing believer. We may have years of unconfessed sins on our conscience, clogging our spiritual blood vessels and resulting in poor circulation; we’re “sickly,” that is, spiritually weak and lacking in God’s life. Accumulated sins on our conscience can make us insensitive to our conscience, causing us to lose the proper feeling toward sin. Our heart becomes hardened, callous toward sin and unfeeling toward the Lord.
But confessing clears everything away; God forgives us and the blood of Jesus cleanses us. We’re restored to fellowship and enjoy the flow of God’s life in us again. Because our conscience is clear, our heart is untroubled and peaceful, and we can have unhindered fellowship with the Lord. We desperately need this regular exercise of confessing our offenses to the Lord.
Paying a price to exercise
The thought that we can live any way we like, do whatever we want, and still experience Christ as our life is harmful to our Christian life. The experience of Christ is something precious; it has a price. In Revelation 3:18, the Lord counseled the church in Laodicea, “Buy from Me.”
To buy something means to pay a price for it. It’s a spiritual reality that to gain the precious experiences of Christ, a price must be paid. Our own wishes, desires, and decisions are the price we pay when we exercise our heart to keep it in newness. But by daily exercise, our new heart is kept pure, loving, right, and submissive. When our heart is in this condition, all the riches of Christ are ours to experience. And the more we go on, the more we realize the price we pay is actually a bargain for the unsearchable Christ we enjoy in return!
If you want to learn more about our heart, take a look at these additional posts: What Is the Heart in the Bible? and What Does It Mean to Love God with All Your Heart?
If you live in the US, you can order a free copy of the New Testament Recovery Version here.
