I’m lame

School starts next week, so Christians on Campus has been really active.  We’ve had open houses, moved students into their dorms, breakfasts, lunches, and everything in between.  This morning we had Sunday fellowship at our campus house and the topic was Mephibosheth.  Now, lets be real for a second.  How many of you can honestly say that you know who Mephibosheth was?  I couldn’t.  But after our fellowship this morning, I’ll never forget his story.

Let me give you the verses from 2 Samuel and then I’ll re-speak (or type) what the brothers shared this morning.

2 Sam 4:4 “Now Jonathan, Saul’s son, had a son who had crippled feet.  He was five years old when the news came of Saul and Jonathan out or Jezreel.  And his nurse took him up and fled.  And as she hurried to flee, he fell and was made lame.  And his name was Mephibosheth.”

9:1 “And David said, Is there still anyone left of the house of Saul, that I may show kindness to him for Jonathan’s sake?

3b-9 “And Ziba said to the king, There is still a son of Jonathan; he is crippled in his feet.  Then the king said to him, Where is he?  And Ziba said to the king, He is just now in the house of Machir the sone of Amiel in Lo-debar.  And King David sent men and took him from the house of Machir the son of Amiel, from Lo-debar.  And Mephibosheth the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David and fell on his face and paid homage.  And David said, Mephibosheth.  And he said, Your servant is here.  And David said to him, Do not be afraid, for I will surely show kindness to your for the sake of Jonathan your father; and I will restore to you all the land of your father Saul, and you will eat food at my table continually.  And he paid him homage and said, What is your servant that you should look upon a dead dog like me?  And the king called Ziba, Saul’s attendant, and said to him, All that belongs to Saul and to all his house I give to your master’s son.”

10b-11 “…and Mephibosheth, said to David, shall eat at my table like one of the king’s sons.”

13 “And Mehibosheth dwelt in Jerusalme because he ate at the king’s table continually.  And he was crippled in both his feet.”

Ok, so Mephibosheth was Jonathan’s son, which means he was Saul’s grandson.  Just in case you don’t know the story, Saul was the first king of Israel, but after a while he turned away from Jehovah and eventually lost His blessing.  Jehovah then chose David, who was one of Saul’s attendants who played the lyre.  Even though both Saul and Jonathan realized that David would be king someday, Saul tried to kill David but Jonathan made a covenant with David that he would always show kindness to his house (there’s a lot more but this is the abridged version).  So after Jonathan and Saul were both killed in battle, David became king.  This is why Mephibosheth’s nurse ran – she was afraid David would kill everyone in Saul’s house.

But he didn’t.

He invited Jonathan’s only descendent – the grandson of the man who tried to kill him – to eat at his table continually.

The brother who shared this morning pointed out that this story of Mephibosheth actually represents our Christian experience today.

Romans 5:10 says “For if we, being enemies, were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more we will be saved in His life, having been reconciled.”  Just like Mephibosheth was an enemy of David, so we were enemies of God.  But we were brought back to God through another – through Christ, or in the case of Mephibosheth, through Jonathan.

And like Mephibosheth, we are also lame towards God.  According to Romans 3:10-11 “There is none righteous, not even one; There is none who understands, there is none who seeks God.”  But luckily, Romans 2:4 says “…knowing that God’s kindness is leading you to repentance.”  If you look back in the verses, King David sent men and took Mephibosheth.  He didn’t seek out David, just like we, in our lame condition, can’t seek out God.  God sought us and His kindness leads us to repentance.

So what happens after God finds us and leads us to repentance?  We eat!  For free!  All the time!  Once Mephibosheth got to David’s house, all he did was eat at the king’s table.  Continually.

But the point that really got me was that when Mephibosheth sat down at the table, he didn’t see his crippled feet!  When he sat down at the table all he could see was the food on the table. He forgot about his lame condition and just enjoyed!  I don’t know about you, but it seems like I’m always bombarded with thoughts from Satan about what a miserable sinner and terrible person I am.  He likes to bring up all of my sins and shortcomings and it’s so easy to get depressed and try to hide from God in Lo-Debar, which by the way means “no pasture,” “not having,” or “not having.”  But that’s the perfect opportunity to quote Ephesians 2:11-14 and claim my status as a child of God through the blood of Christ.  We don’t have to look at our crippled feet!  We can just come to the table through our Savior and eat!  Why stay in the place of no supply as an enemy of God when you can feast at the king’s table!  Don’t stay in Lo-Debar!  Come to the feast and forget about your weaknesses!

Ordinary Days

Well, I was going to write a post about why I changed the name of my blog to “Ordinary Days,” but then I stumbled upon this blog post from A God-Man in Christ, and it was everything I wanted to share with you and more.  So instead of writing something completely original, I’ll just point you to a blog that already said what I was going to say.  Please visit agodman.com for the full post (this is just the first three paragraphs)!

“Our Christian life is not a spectacular life, filled with all kind of amazing and out-of-the-ordinary events, but it is a normal daily life under the divine dispensing. The Triune God has been processed and consummated so that in His Divine Trinity He may dispense all that He is into us – and this takes place in a daily way, in a normal way, and even in a fine and detailed way. As we turn to Him here and there, He dispenses Himself into us little by little, day by day, bit by bit, causing us to grow in the divine life in a normal way!

Just as our human life, our Christian life is not filled with spectacular things or extraordinary experiences. On the one hand, from time to time, such experiences may occur, but they are not of a daily occurrence. We shouldn’t expect to have a spectacular time each day in receiving the divine dispensing. We shouldn’t expect spectacular results in our Christian life. Rather, we need to be content and satisfied with ordinary days filled with regular and normal practices in our human life under the divine dispensing!

We love our time in the morning with the Lord – seeking His face, touching Him, spending time with Him in a personal way, and being revived by Him every morning. After such a time – which is not spectacular but is a normal experience in the divine life – we go ahead in our daily life and live our life with its daily routine, activities, to-do’s, etc in the divine dispensing. We go to school, we go to work, we travel, we visit, whatever we do during the day, we live ordinary days in the divine dispensing, receiving the fine and sweet dispensing of the Triune God!”

Recently I’ve been enjoying a song that talks about this, and I’ve been impressed with the fact that my Christian life shouldn’t be something so miraculous that it somehow gets separated from my normal, everyday life.  Yes, especially awesome things may happen every once in a blue moon, but that isn’t the Christian life our God has ordained for us.  Our Christian life is a little by little and day by day life.  Daily getting into the word, singing hymns, and meeting with other believers are just a few ways to live this normal Christian life.  In my own experience, I’ve also enjoyed writing verses on my mirror to help me get ready in the morning and listening to online messages of Christian conferences while I clean my house and do laundry.

Ephesians 5:16 says “Redeeming the time, for the days are evil.”  The footnote in my translation says “I.e., seizing every favorable opportunity.  This is be be wise in our walk (v. 15).”  There are so many small times in my day that could be spent with my precious Savior that I overlook.  Waiting in line, driving, and cooking are just a few examples.  O Lord open our eyes!  We want to seize every favorable opportunity to enjoy You!  To love You!  To gain You!

Here’s the song I mentioned earlier.  You can listen to it here.  (I added the verse references to each verse incase any of you wanted to look it up!)

Little by little (Exo. 23:30) the Lord is cutting off all our natural life.  As we grow in Him He replaces us with more of His life divine.

It is our destiny to live a normal life, in the divine dispensing.
It is a blessing to be satisfied with ordinary days in the divine dispensing.

Day by day (2 Cor. 4:16), our inward parts are being renewed by the Lord. Everyday, fresh and rich supply to us He does afford.

Here a little and there a little (Isa. 28:10) Christ reveals Himself to us.  When we read His word, we are satisfied and we enjoy Him thus.

Morning by morning (Lam. 3:23) Jehovah He is faithful to awaken us.  He instructs our ears, with just a word the weary to sustain we must.

From strength to strength (Psa. 84:7) we’re on the highways to enter into our God. Though Satan opposes we are strengthened to lay hold on more of God.

Grace upon grace (John 1:16) the Triune God is processed for us to enjoy.  The law is over, now we can partake of His supply with grace.

From glory to glory (2 Cor. 3:18) we are in the process of being transformed. Beholding reflecting, to God’s image with all saints we’ll be conformed.

Being independent of the Body is being independent of God; we all are members!

This is a wonderful post from A God-Man in Christ on seeing the Body of Christ and living in the Body of Christ.  This is super timely for me because at present, I am stuck in Nashville without the practical fellowship I am usually surrounded by at home with Christians on Campus.

You can view the full post here, but here’s a little intro:

If we see the Body of Christ we will realize that we need deliverance not only from our sinful and natural life, but also from our individualistic life. For us to know the Body life, we need to deny our self, because our self is the greatest problem and the greatest enemy of the Body.

Check with your experience – whenever you are in the self, you don’t want to be with the saints, and there’s no building up!

Just as the Father is versus the world (1 John 2:15), the Spirit is versus the flesh (Gal. 5:17), the Lord Jesus is versus the devil (1 John 3:8), so also the Body of Christ is versus the individual, versus the self. Lord, grant us a vision of the self and a vision of the Body!

Related Post:  Coals Burning Coals

5 Verses on the Comfort of God

Psalm 46:1-3 

“God is our refuge and strength; A help in distress, He is most readily found.

Therefore we will not fear, Though the earth change, And the mountains slip into the heart of the seas;

Though the waters of the sea roar and foam;”

Psalm 18:2

“Jehovah is my crag and my fortress and my Deliverer; My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my high retreat.”

Nahum 1:7

“Jehovah is good, a stronghold in a day of distress; And He knows those who take refuge in Him.”

2 Corinthians 1:3-5

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassions and God of all comfort;

Who comforts us in all our affliction that we may be able to comfort those who are in every affliction through the comforting with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

For even as the sufferings of the Christ abound unto us, so through the Christ our comfort also abounds.”

2 Thessalonians 2:16

“Now the Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us eternal comfort and good hope in grace”

Don’t see your favorite?  Tell me in the comments!

Added by you guys:

1 Corinthians 1:3

“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

The Lord’s Prayer (Part 1)

Almost every church-going Christian can recite the prayer in Matthew 6 from memory.   In case you are unfamiliar with, or have forgotten, this prayer, it reads:

“9 Our Father who is in the heavens, Your name be sanctified;

10 Your kingdom come; Your will be done, as in heaven, so also on earth.

11 Give us today our daily bread.

12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

13 And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.  For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.  Amen.”

Growing up, my dad took me to a Methodist church and we read it at the end of every service, but I had no idea what it meant.  It was just the signal that church was almost over and I could go home and change into soccer shorts and a t-shirt.  So when I saw that my morning devotional for this week focuses on this prayer I had some mixed feelings.  One reaction was to groan and sigh.  “Ugh.  This again.  I already know this.”  But I was also curious.  “Maybe there’s something here that I’ve never seen before.  Some kind of deeper significance that I never understood.”

Luckily, I went with the second reaction and read it even though I wasn’t too excited about it.  My devotional splits the prayer in to two parts for study, and that’s what I’m going to do here.  The first part is verses 9-10.

“You then pray in this way: Our Father who is in the heavens, Your name be sanctified; Your kingdom come; Your will be done, as in heaven, so also on earth.”

My devotional points out that first of all, the ones praying have to be children of God.  Otherwise, how could they say “Father”?  And as children of God the ones praying this prayer have the authority, the right, to call God their Father.  Isn’t this wonderful?  We have the right and the authority to call the God of the universe our Father!

I also appreciate this translation’s use of the word “sanctified” in verse 9 instead of the word “hallowed” that I grew up with.  The devotional points out that “To be sanctified means to be separated and distinct from all that is common.  On the fallen earth there are many false gods. The worldly people consider our God as being in common with those gods.  If we pray for our Father’s name to be sanctified, we should not just utter this with our words.  For His name to be sanctified, we should express Him in our living.  We must live a sanctified life, a daily life separated from being common.”

I had never considered how the Father’s name would be sanctified or hallowed.  I guess I just thought if I said the words, it would somehow happen, almost in a superstitious way.  But the devotional points out that as a child of God, I bear the name of my Father.  Therefore, in my daily living I have a responsibility to sanctify His name and make sure it is separated from all other “gods” and anything else that is common.  The Lord’s name is cursed and spoken evilly of throughout the whole earth.  He needs some who would sanctify His name and make it holy.  Lord, make me this kind of person!  I don’t just want to say these words!  I want to live this prayer!

And lastly, the devotional talks about verse 10.  “Today the world is not God’s kingdom but His enemy’s kingdom.  This is why the Bible says that Satan is the ruler of today’s world (John 12:31).  In Satan’s kingdom, the world, there is no righteousness, no peace, and no joy.  Romans 14:17 tells us that the reality of the kingdom life is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.  In Satan’s kingdom today, there is no joy, because there is no peace.”

Wow.  This really opened my eyes to see the real situation on the earth today.  I knew that when the Lord comes back He will establish His kingdom, but I guess I didn’t think of it as pushing out or defeating Satan’s kingdom.  “We need to pray for the Father’s divine will to be done on earth as in the heavens.  This is to bring the heavenly ruling, the kingdom of the heavens, to this earth.  Then the Father’s will surely will be done on the earth.”

After reading this devotional my view of this prayer has done a complete 180.  It’s not just something to repeat verbatim in a church service.  Its more of a blueprint for how to live the Christian life and a skeleton model of what to pray for.  I’ve realized that I can take any one of the verses and expand it to apply to the world situation to today and to my daily living.  What a wonderful pattern of prayer the Lord gave us!

keeping the oneness of the Body and being made Christ to be the Body of Christ

A wonderful post from A God-Man in Christ.

Here’s a short teaser.

“All the genuine believers of Christ who have received Christ in their spirit are members of the Body of Christ, joined together with Christ in an organic union.

The Body of Christ is not an organization nor is it a society; it is the organism of the Triune Godproduced by the mingling of God with man. As members of the Body of Christ, we need to keep the oneness of the Body – if there’s no oneness, there’s no Body of Christ.

Also, since the Body is OF Christ and the Body IS Christ, we need to become Christ so that we may be the Body of Christ in reality. We need to have Christ wrought into our being and mingled with us so that we may be the Body of Christ.”

Do you realize that Christ is in you?

I am reading through a book called the Life-Study of Colossians, and today I read a  portion on Christ being applicable in our experience that really touched me.

“In 1:27 Paul speaks of ‘Christ in you, the hope of glory.’ Do you realize that Christ is in you? The Christ who is in us is the extensive, immeasurable, unsearchable One. How marvelous that such a Christ dwells in us!”

So many times I forget what it means to say that I am a Christian.  Yes, I have been redeemed (Romans 3:24, Ephesians 1:7) and forgiven of my sins, but I also have also received Christ, who is God, into me.  This is what it means to be born again (John 3:6).

It’s always good to be reminded that I haven’t received some kind of super-human ability to follow rules or maintain an impossibly high moral standard, but I have received THE GOD OF THE UNIVERSE into me.  How cool is that?!?!

Here are some verses telling us that Christ is in us as Christians:

Colossians 1:27 – “To whom God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

Romans 8:10 – “But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness.”

2 Corinthians 13:5 – “Test yourselves whether you are in the faith; prove yourselves.  Or do you not realize about yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you, unless you are disapproved.”

But how do we know that Jesus Christ is God?

Romans 9:5 – “Whose are the fathers, and out of whom, as regards what is according to flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever.  Amen.”

1 John 5:20 – “And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding that we might know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ.  This is the true God and eternal life.

John 20:26-28 – “And after eight days, His disciples were again within, and Thomas was with them.  Jesus came, though the doors were shut, and stood in the midst and said, Peace be to you.  Then He said to Thomas, Bring your finger here and see My hands, and bring your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing.  Thomas answered and said to Him, My Lord and my God!”

A question I found myself asking is “If I have received Jesus Christ into me as the ‘extensive, immeasurable, and unsearchable One’, how come I don’t experience Him as such an extensive, immeasurable, and unsearchable God?  I don’t know about you, but sometimes it just feels like God is way up in the heavens and I’m way down here on earth and there’s no contact between us.  I’m doing my thing and He’s doing His thing.

Well, I just finished the Life-Study of Joshua and a couple of sentences in that book actually answered my question.  It says “We gain Christ, experience Christ, and enjoy Christ according to what we are.  Therefore, someone who is diligent in pursuing Christ will experience a larger Christ than someone who is lazy in this matter.”

Wow.  That is really exposing.  God wants to be immeasurable to me in my experience, but I limit Him to the point that sometimes I even forget He’s there.  I want to be like Paul in Philippians chapter three who pursued toward the goal for the prize (v. 14) and stretched forward to the things that are before while forgetting the things that are behind (v. 13).  He was a real pattern in being diligent to pursue Christ.

O Lord Jesus!  Make me like Paul!  I want to be one that pursues You!  I don’t want to be lazy anymore!  I want to lay hold on You!  I want to gain You!  I want to know and experience You to the fullest extent!

Channels of Life

Have you ever considered that

“Life is God the Father in Christ Jesus / As the Spirit flowing into us. / How enjoyable, this Person wonderful! / He’s our life so rich and bountiful.”

I love this song.  It reminds me that eternal life isn’t simply some amount of time i’ll spend in heaven after I die.  Eternal life is a person, Jesus Christ (John 1:4, 5:26, 11:25).  When someone prays to receive the Lord and to be born again or regenerated, they are actually receiving the eternal life of God into them.  WOW!  That is amazing.  Can you imagine?  The God of the universe wants to put His very life inside of measly little sinners like us.  Incredible.

But God has no intention of stopping with us.  He wants to flow out of us and into other people.  This is the topic of my morning devotional this week that some of us in Christians on Campus are going through.

In 1 John 5:14-16 we see John’s word concerning how to take care of a brother who is sinning a sin “not unto death.”  John tells the reader that “If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin not unto death, he shall ask and he will give life to him, to those sinning not unto death” (v. 16).  GIVE LIFE TO HIM.  How in the world am I supposed to give life, eternal life, to someone else???  This sounds awesome, and it’s pretty amazing that the Bible says we can participate in this, but how?

Our devotional says “If we enjoy eternal life and experience it, surely we shall be able to channel this life to others.  We shall be able to minister eternal life to other members of the Body.”  In John 7:38 Jesus tells a huge crowd of people “He who believes into Me, as the Scripture said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.”

Jesus gave a similar declaration to the Samaritan woman in John 4:13-14.  “Jesus answered and said to her, Everyone who drinks of this water shall thirst again, But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall by no means thirst forever; but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water spring up into eternal life.”  So here we have a connection between the eternal life of God and the living water.  The living water is the life of God experienced by us!  Hallelujah!

Back to John 7:38.  I have heard this verse explained by saying that the rivers are actually the various divine attributes of God (love, light, etc.) spreading into our soul (which is awesome), but this devotional expounded it in a different way.  It says “In chapter seven the living water is not only in us, but it also has become rivers of living water.  It flows out of us into others and supplies others with life and satisfies their thirst.  God is not satisfied with us only having His life; He wants His life to flow out of us.”

This was a completely new view on the rivers of living water in John for me.  Totally caught me off guard, but this is exactly what 1 John is talking about, this is the life that we can minister to our brothers and sisters in the Lord.

The devotional continues:

“Today God is seeking people into whom He can dispense Christ’s life more and more so that they can supply others with His life.  Life needs channels, and God wants men to be the channels through which His life can flow to others.  May the Lord gain us so that we can have a life-supplying ministry and supply others with life.”

Oh Lord!  Make me a person that You can flow through!  I don’t want to bottle You up inside of me!  Make me a channel of life!  I want to flow out to my coworkers!  To my family!  To my friends!

“Eternal life not only takes care of our own need; it also takes care of the need of the fellow members around us.  It overcomes death within us, and it overcomes death within our brothers.  Especially, it overcomes death in those who are weak or who have problems.”

Both of my parents are psychologists.  They know how to give therapy and talk people into feeling better.  But I can’t do that.  I don’t like doing that.  People and their problems scare and intimidate me because I don’t know what to say or what to do.  But I’m so encouraged by this word!  People don’t need me!  They don’t need my good advice or similar experiences!  They just need God!  God is the only One that can meet everyone’s every need!  I just need to flow out the God that I have been enjoying!  This is so sweet!  I’m no therapist, but I can be a channel of life!  Hallelujah!

(Me trying to give therapy ^)

The Discipline of the Holy Spirit – Christians on Campus college meeting

This week in the meeting for college students, we talked about the discipline of the Holy Spirit.  Most of the fellowship was based on part of a chapter in the book Knowing Life and the Church by Witness Lee.

When I first read the title of our reading for the night, I was kind of scared.  Wow, discipline.  Really?  I came here tonight to get disciplined?  I should of stayed home.

But we actually had some really sweet fellowship.

Our reading starts off by saying “God’s arrangement, ordination, permission, and move in our environment are the discipline of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit rules over our environment, and He moves and arranges everything to break our person.”

Ouch.  “Break our person.”  That sounds awesome.  Sign me up…not.

Further down the page, however, Romans 8:28 is referenced.  “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”  Usually, when I hear this verse, I think “Great.  All things are going to work out for good.  That means I’ll get an A on my test, none of my kids will go crazy today, all will be well.”  But actually, that’s not the context of this verse.  Romans 8 is all about freedom in the Spirit and the Christ who lives in us.  Verse 17 says “And if children, heirs also; on the one hand, heirs of God; on the other, joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him that we may also be glorified with Him.”  The verse following 8:28 says “Because those whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the Firstborn among many brothers.”  So, according to these two verses, the good that is to be worked out in verse 28 is just the gaining of more God so that we can be full-grown sons of God, and even heirs of God.

In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul tells us that he petitioned the Lord three times to remove “a thorn in the flesh” (v. 7).  This was not an actual thorn, but rather something in his environment or even a physical suffering arranged by God.  I don’t know about you, but whenever there’s something in my environment that causes me to suffer, you better believe I’m praying to have it taken away.  And you would think that Paul, someone who wrote 13 books of the New Testament, would surely be able to break through in prayer and miraculously turn a bad situation into a pleasant one.

But what was God’s reply to Paul’s thorn-removal request?  “My grace is sufficient for you” (v. 9).  Can you believe that?  God wouldn’t even take away Paul’s thorn.  PAUL’S.  I mean, wouldn’t God want to take it away so that Paul would be able to do more?  Write more?  Travel more?  Preach more?  How could Paul do all those things if he was suffering?

This is why fellowshipping with others is so wonderful.  The reading pointed out that “Our thorn (whatever it may be – family, work, roommates) will continue to pierce us, trouble us, and bother us.  This is the environment that God has created to cause us to know the Lord’s grace and to experience the Lord’s power.”  I find that the times I pray the most and rely on God the most is when I’m going through a difficult situation.  Usually, when everything is smooth sailing I forget about God and live independently from His grace.  No breaking.  No conforming.  But as soon as something pops up that gives me a hard time, I’m forced to turn to Him once again.

“If we submit ourselves to the Lord and receive this, we will meet the Lord within, and we will be blessed by having life as the power that carries us through and enables us to endure what we could not endure.”  The Lord is so sweet.  Every single person on this earth goes through difficult situations, but one thing I saw last night was that the difference between an unbeliever and a believer.  A believer has the potential to gain God and experience God’s grace and power when he is going through a difficult situation.  We don’t have to do anything!  Hallelujah!  We can just sit back and enjoy God.  We don’t have to be like the unbelievers who struggle through hard times and have to rely on their own limited strength to carry them through.  We have the almighty God who is just waiting for us to open up and call on Him so that He can be everything to us and meet our every need.  This is a real enjoyment in the Christian life.

Want to break free from everything that’s holding you back?

If You Want to Be Freed From Every Negative Thing and Saturated With the Divine Element, You Need to Read the Bible

“And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” – John 8:32

“Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.” – John 17:17

“It is a very significant matter to have the truth, for it frees us from all negative things and saturates us with the divine element.  The more truth we have, the more we are released from bondage and the more we are saturated with the element of God.  Eventually the truth will cause us to be thoroughly sanctified and transformed.” – Truth Messages (Ch. 1), Witness Lee

This has really been my experience.  There have been plenty of times when I was filled to the brim with all kinds of anger, fear, anxiety, jealousy, etc. to the point that I felt like I was a prisoner of my own emotions.  The last thing I want to do when I’m in that condition is read the Bible, but I have found that when I just stop my being and pick up the word, something happens inside of me.  All those terrible thoughts and emotions just fall away.  I don’t try to be a good or loving or patient or whatever person.  I just read the word and somehow I get set free from everything that is troubling me.  The source of my anger or anxiety (ex: work, school) might still be there, but the condition of my heart is changed.  God is able to come into and saturate my thoughts.  In this way, by letting God into my situation through reading the Bible, I get transformed and saturated with God.  This is the best way I have found to be freed from all of the negative things in my being.