The Word of God – Seek the Lord While He May Be Found

Verses for Today

Psalm 119:2 Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, / Who seek Him with all their heart.

2 Timothy 2:22 But flee youthful lusts, and pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

Fellowship

The kind of person we are determines how we receive God’s words that are in the Bible. For the word of God to be life to us, we need to be God’s seekers. This means that whatever we might do, in that thing, we want to gain God. Whether we read or we pray, we are not interested in anything but seeing, touching, and gaining God Himself.

The writer of Psalm 119 was such a seeker. Many Christians are not familiar with the term “seekers of God,” even though this concept is biblical. According to Psalm 119, seeking God is related to keeping the law. If you try to keep the law without having a heart to seek God, your efforts will be in vain. This was the serious shortcoming of the Judaizers at the time of Paul. Trying to keep the law without seeking God with their whole heart, they failed in their endeavor to fulfill the law’s requirements. If we want to walk according to God’s law, we must seek Him with our whole heart. We can pray, “Lord Jesus, show me what it means to seek you with my whole heart.” (Life Study of Exodus, Msg 56, Section 1)

In 2 Timothy 2:22 Paul charged Timothy to flee youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. This indicates that the Lord’s seekers must be His callers.

We call on the name of the Lord by our spirit, yet it must be out of a pure heart… Our heart must be purified, and the heart includes all these things: motive, intention, purpose, will, decision, sensation, feeling, and thought. The heart must be pure in all of its constituents. Then we can call on the Lord purely.

Second Timothy 2:22 implies that we need to call on the Lord with the Lord’s callers. Sometimes we call on the Lord just by ourselves. This exercises our spirit and we receive more of the Lord, but not as much as when we call with some others. To have a corporate calling on the Lord helps a lot. In order to exercise our spirit, we have to recover the practice of calling on the name of the Lord. We need to exercise our spirit so that we may receive the Lord more. Then we can live a godly life to manifest God. (Basic Lessons on Life, Chapter 18, published by Living Stream Ministry)

Gods seekers love God and call on His name out of a pure heart. Let us open our mouth, full of love for the Lord in our heart, and say, “Lord Jesus!”, “Oh, Lord Jesus”, “dearest Lord Jesus!”. Isaiah 55:6 says, “Seek Jehovah while He may be found; / Call upon Him while He is near.”

A song to help us seek the Lord

Seek the Lord while He may be found,

Call upon Him while He is near:

Let the wicked forsake his way,

And the unrighteous man his thoughts:

And let him return to the Lord,

Unto our God,

And He will abundantly pardon,

He will abundantly pardon you—

Return to the Lord.

February 13, 2024

The Word of God – The Letter Kills but the Spirit Gives Life

Verses for Today

2 Cor 3:6 Who has also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant, ministers not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

2 Cor 3:14a But their thoughts were hardened; for until the present day the same veil remains at the reading of the old covenant.

Fellowship

Reading the Bible is a necessary practice for all believers. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 says that, “All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for conviction, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, That the man of God may be complete, fully equipped for every good work.” Therefore, what is found in the Bible is the best content available in the whole world. Do not think that you can scroll on your electronic device until you find something better than what is found in the Bible; you cannot. We wholeheartedly recommend the reading of the Bible.

Having said this, we have to know that there are two ways to take the Bible into us. One way results in life and the other way results in death. Let us check our experience. Why is it that we sometimes don’t delight in reading the Bible as much as we should? If the Bible is so rich in content, why is it that it can sometimes even give us a dead feeling? Some ardent studiers of the Bible can even become enemies of God and begin to breathe out threatening and murder. This is because, when taken in for mere knowledge, the letter of the Bible can become death to us.

On the contrary, when we pray to contact Jesus Christ who is the life-giving Spirit, the words of the Bible can become spirit and life to us. We experience something like a flowing river, refreshing us and supplying us. One way is to take the words for knowledge, and this results in death. This is just like Adam and Eve taking from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The other way is to come to the Lord Jesus while we read, seeking to receive life. This is just like man coming to eat of the tree of life.

As Paul said of the Jews, there is a veil upon their heart in the reading of the Scriptures (2 Cor. 3:14). They are veiled by their tradition and by their natural concepts. In their experience the Bible thus becomes a book of dead letters. Like the ancient Pharisees, scribes, and Judaizers, they handle the Word without directly contacting the Lord. Instead of exercising their spirit, they rely on their natural understanding. Furthermore, they are often zealous to maintain their religious tradition. But whenever we come to the Word, we need to contact the Lord. As we come to the Lord in the Word, we need to hunger and thirst for Him and seek to enjoy Him. This seeking after the Lord is well expressed in the lines of hymn 812:

I come to Thee, dear Lord,
My heart doth thirst for Thee;
Of Thee I’d eat, of Thee I’d drink,
Enjoy Thee thoroughly.

Just to behold Thy face,
For this my heart doth cry;
I deeply long to drink of Thee
My thirst to satisfy.

In our reading and pray-reading of the Word, we should seek the Lord’s glorious, radiant face. Then in our experience the Word of God will be a source of life supply and nourishment… (Life Study of Exodus, Msg 56, Section 4)

January 24, 2024February 13, 2024

The Word of God – And he will be like a Tree

Verses for Today

Psalm 1:1 Blessed is the man / Who does not walk / In the counsel of the wicked, / Nor stand on the path of sinners, / Nor sit in the seat of mockers;

Psalm 1:2 Rather his delight is in the law of Jehovah, / And in His law he meditates by day and by night.

Psalm 1:3 And he will be like a tree / Transplanted beside streams of water, / Which yields its fruit in its season, / And whose foliage does not wither; / And everything he does prospers.

John 10:10b I have come that they may have life and may have it abundantly.

Fellowship

The Bible surely tells us that God created us and that He is taking care of all our needs. It even tells us that God sent His Son to die for us that we might be saved from our sins. We should always thank Him for all these blessings. We have so much to be thankful for, but let us not just acknowledge this. Let us practice, “Thank you Lord!”.

By thanking the Lord thus and even praising Him and loving Him, we come to see that the Bible has an even deeper level, revealing to us God’s very heart and plan. God’s plan is altogether wrapped up with you and me; His plan is that we receive His life and live by Him. He wants us not only to have a human life and to be forgiven, but to have His divine life. 1 Corinthians 15:45 tells us that in His resurrection Christ became a life-giving Spirit. As the Spirit, He gives us Himself as God’s life! The Bible’s primary purpose is actually that we might have God’s life.

God’s intention in His economy [plan] is to dispense Christ into us, and for this dispensing there must be some means. The Bible is the means that God uses to dispense Christ into us (The Holy Word for Morning Revival, Topics for New Believers, Week 3, day 1).

Psalm 1 indicates that the law, when taken in a proper way as God’s word, can minister life to us. Those who delight in the law of the Lord and who muse on it day and night are like trees planted by the rivers of water (vv. 2-3)… If we contact the law of God by musing upon God’s word in worship and prayer, in our experience the law will become a river of water, and we shall be trees planted by the water. This is the indication in Psalms 1 that the law can supply us and water us. (Life Study of Exodus, Msg 56, Section 4)

As we come to His word day by day, and practice contacting Him with our spirit, we shall be those who receive more and more of God’s divine life; we shall be like the trees planted by the rivers of water.

December 25, 2021March 18, 2022

Morning Revival Exercises – Pray Reading the Word

Verses for Today

2 Corinthians 3:17 And the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

John 4:24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness.

Ephesians 6:17 And receive the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which Spirit is the word of God,

Ephesians 6:18 By means of all prayer and petition, praying at every time in spirit and watching unto this in all perseverance and petition concerning all the saints,

John 6:63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.

Fellowship

The goal of morning revival is to get revived and we can get revived by touching the Lord. Because 2 Corinthians 3:17 tells us that the Lord is the Spirit, we know that we have to use our own human spirit to contact Him. Our human spirit corresponds to the Lord as the Spirit. The Lord Jesus even instructs us in John 4:24 to use our human spirit to contact Him!

Did you know you had a human spirit? This is a spiritual organ deep inside you. When you call on the name of the Lord you are exercising your spirit. When you tell Him you love Him you are exercising your spirit. Essentially, whenever you turn your being to the Lord and direct your heart and your speaking to Him, you are exercising your spirit. Reading only with our eyes and our mind, like we do for school, is not enough for us to touch the living Christ who is the Spirit today. What we need is to pray to contact our dear Lord Jesus all the time, even while reading His word.

Here are some examples. If you reply to the Word of God with an “Amen Lord,” that is to contact the Lord. If you begin to read a verse with, “Oh, Lord Jesus,” and then read the verse, then this is also an excellent way to contact the Lord, that is, to touch the Lord through prayer as you read.

There is not one way to pray-read. Ephesians 6:18 shows us that we should receive the Word by means of all prayer. This means all kinds of prayer. When pray-reading, you can be calling on the Lord, confessing, or petitioning the Lord. All prayer is good. In fact, using John 6:63 as an example, you can say to the Lord, “Lord, It is the Spirit who gives Life; Lord, You are the Spirit and You give life. Lord, give life to me!”

Those who have tried pray-reading have discovered that it is one of the quickest ways to get out of our selfishness and into the enjoyment of God. God has put His very thoughts into the Bible. By praying and reading the Bible, His selfless, loving, and pure thoughts get into us and can even become our thoughts. This is a part of sanctification. By pray-reading, we are being sanctified! Moreover, John 6:63 tells us that the Spirit gives life. Therefore, whenever we pray-read, we not only receive God’s thoughts, but even His life.

Do practice contacting the Lord while reading His word. If there are several verses that you read, pick one and linger there, praying with the words from that verse, and contacting the Lord Jesus. This is an excellent way to be revived morning by morning.

December 9, 2021September 7, 2022

Bible Distribution Day

We were back at the Petersen Heritage Center giving away the best gift ever – The Word of God.

We setup the table on Wednesday December 8, 4:30-6:30 PM.
Students were invited to simply take one of these New Testament study Bibles.
There were no strings attached, we didn’t require people to pay, to give us there name, or any such thing.
We gave out the Recovery Version. It has footnotes that open up the spiritual meaning of the word. You can still get one free from Bibles for America.

2021-12-08 -Giving-Away-Free-Bibles02 While we sat there, we shared portions of the word with one another. When one student came by and was interested in knowing what made this Bible different, we were able to show them a verse we were enjoying. We opened up to Matthew 13:8, where the Lord Jesus tells a parable about a sower who went out to sow. The seeds he sowed fell in different places. The verse says:

But others fell on the good earth and yielded fruit, one a hundredfold, and one sixtyfold, and one thirtyfold.

The other verses in chapter 13 as well as the footnotes in the Recovery Version helped us to understand what the good earth really is. Here’s one of the footnotes for verse 8.

The good earth signifies the good heart that is not hardened by worldly traffic, that is without hidden sins, and that is without the anxiety of the age and the deceitfulness of riches. Such a heart gives every inch of its ground to receive the word that the word may grow, bear fruit, and produce even a hundredfold (v. 23). – New Testament Recovery Version

The student smiled and thanked us for giving her the word of God. Just that alone was such a sweet encouragement to us. Thank the Lord for these sweet opportunities.

February 16, 2019March 18, 2022

Winter Gospel Outreach on the Campus

At the Peterson Heritage Center

We joined forces with the Full Time Training in Anaheim, CA to go out and spread the good news of Jesus Christ on the University of Utah Campus!

We also met up with our dear visitors from Anaheim up in Park City!

The Body of Christ is in Utah!

Handing out Bibles is a real joy!

We handed out gospel tracts, invitations to Bible studies and plenty of free Bibles!