Category: Bible Studies

Higher Ground | Day 4

ROOTED IN CHRIST

Col. 2:6–7 – As therefore you have received the Christ, Jesus the Lord, 7 walk in Him, having been rooted and being built up in Him, and being established in the faith even as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

In the morning many believers spend time with the Lord. However, even though they spend a certain amount of time with Him, they may not absorb much of His riches. The reason is that they are in too much of a hurry. If we would absorb the riches of Christ into us as our nourishment, we should not be rushed. We cannot absorb anything if we are in a hurry.

If we would absorb the riches of Christ as the soil, we need to have tender, new roots. Do not let yourself get old, but be fresh and renewed day by day. Pray to the Lord, “Lord, I want my consecration to be fresh, and I want to open to You anew. I want my roots to be tender that I may absorb Your riches. Lord, don’t let my roots get old.” If our roots are tender and new to absorb the riches of Christ, we shall grow automatically with the riches we assimilate. This is to enjoy Christ and to experience Him subjectively daily and hourly. (Life-study of Colossians, pp. 486– 487)

Being rooted is a matter of life. For a plant to be rooted in the soil involves an organic process. Apart from such a process, no plant can become rooted. The deeper a plant’s roots extend into the earth, the more far-reaching is the organic process. As a plant’s root system develops, the life of the plant spreads and develops. To be rooted in Christ is to experience such a development, spreading, and activity of life. (Ibid, pp. 404–405)

Higher Ground | Day 3

A HIDDEN LIFE

Instructions:

Pray | 2-3 minutes
Open your heart to the Lord. Tell Him
you love Him. Make the verse your
prayer.

Read | 5 minutes
Prayerfully read the verses and
paragraphs.

Write | 5 minutes
Write down what you appreciate or any
questions you have.

Matt. 13:3b, 5-6 – Behold, the sower went out to sow…And [other seed] fell on the rocky places, where they did not have much earth, and immediately they sprang up because they had no depth of earth. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered.

What is a root? It is growth that occurs beneath the soil. What are the leaves? They are growth that occur above the soil. In other words, roots are the hidden life, whereas leaves are the manifest life. The trouble with many Christians is that, while there is much apparent life, there is very little secret life. In other words, there is the lack of a hidden life. How much of your life is hidden from view? How much is unknown to others? You stress outward works. Yes, good works are important; but apart from that manifest expression of your life, how much of your life remains hidden? If all your spiritual life is exposed, you do not have any root. Are all your virtues before God manifested before man, or is there something more that is unknown to man? If all your experiences are manifested, then all your growth is upward; there is no downward growth. If this is the case, you are a person who has only leaves without root, and you are on shallow ground…May God work in us so that we can take root downward. (Deep Calls unto Deep, pp. 2, 5)

Those who do not have any root before the Lord will be dried up in their life…Nothing can preserve you as much as a hidden life. If you see that a brother has fallen or failed, or has come into trouble, without asking anyone, you can surely say that prior to this trouble he lost his hidden life. He lost his hidden life during the previous weeks, months, or even years. Your spiritual life depends very much on your hidden life before God. If you cannot sustain a hidden life, you will be weak before the Lord. Therefore, you should realize the importance of the hidden life. (CWWN, vol. 11, “The Present Testimony (4),” pp. 834-835)

Higher Ground | Day 2

A SPIRITUAL TIME

Instructions:

Pray | 2-3 minutes
Open your heart to the Lord. Tell Him
you love Him. Make the verse your
prayer.

Read | 5 minutes
Prayerfully read the verses and
paragraphs.

Write | 5 minutes
Write down what you appreciate or any
questions you have.

Eph. 6:17-18 – And receive the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit… 18 By means of all prayer and petition, praying at every time in spirit…
1 Cor 6:17 – But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.

In verse 18 Paul says specifically that we are to pray in spirit. This refers to our regenerated spirit indwelt by the Spirit of God. It may be considered the mingled spirit-our spirit mingled with God’s Spirit. Whenever we are in our spirit, we are also in the Holy Spirit, for our spirit is one with the Lord. Therefore, Paul’s charge to pray in spirit implies that we must also pray in the Spirit of God, for these two spirits are mingled in us. In prayer, the main faculty we should use is our spirit. If our mind is overactive or if our emotion is not under control [e.g. we are too sad or too excited], we shall find it difficult to pray. When we pray, our mind should be at rest, and our emotion should be regulated, neither too hot nor too cold. According to my experience, I easily become distracted in prayer when my mind is preoccupied with other things. Likewise, when my emotion is not properly regulated, I find it difficult to utter something from my spirit in prayer. Furthermore, if we would pray at every time in spirit, our will must be strong. It may seem that prayer is easy, but actually it is difficult. It is very easy to talk or read, but it is not easy to pray. Hence, in order to pray in spirit, we need to be adjusted in our mind, balanced in our emotion, and exercised in our will. (Life-study of Ephesians, pp. 552-553)

Higher Ground | Day 1

Instructions:

pray | 2-3 minutes
Open your heart to the Lord. Tell Him
you love Him. Make the verse your
prayer.

Read | 5 minutes
Prayerfully read the verses and
paragraphs.

write | 5 minutes
Write down what you appreciate or any
questions you have.

Matt. 14:23 – And after He sent the crowds away, He went up to the mountain privately to pray. And when night fell, He was there alone.
Matt. 6:6 – But you, when you pray, enter into your private room, and shut your door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will repay you.

We need to see and follow the pattern of the Lord Jesus. He did not remain in the issue of the great miracle that He performed. Instead, He went up to the mountain privately to pray. The word privately is very meaningful. This means He did not let the people
know that He was going to pray. Otherwise, they would have followed Him. He went away from them to be with the Father privately in prayer….We should learn from the Lord’s pattern here by exercising to be with Him on the mountain in prayer. His looking
up to heaven means that He had no trust in Himself. His going up to the mountain means that He wanted to be with the Father in prayer.

To pray with others is good, but often we need to pray by ourselves. When we pray with others, we cannot enjoy the Lord as deeply as when we pray to the Lord privately. Even the Lord Jesus told us that when we pray we should enter into our private room and shut our door and pray to the Father who sees in secret (Matt. 6:6). Then we have the sensation of how intimate He is to us and
how close we are to Him. We have to learn to leave the crowds, our family, our friends, and the saints in the church to go to a higher level on a “high mountain.” We have to go higher, far away from the earthly things on a lower level. We need to get to a higher level, separated from the crowd, to be with the Father privately and secretly to have intimate fellowship with Him. This is the significance of being on the mountain in prayer. (The God-Man Living, pp. 127-128)

Note: The materials we will be using for Morning Revival are adapted from the “Daily Bread” devotional produced by Christian Students at CSU (Fort Collins, CO).