Eph 5:18 And don’t get drunk with wine, which is rebellion; instead be filled with the fullness of the Holy Spirit.
Eph 5:19 And your hearts will overflow with a joyful song to the Lord Jehovah. Keep speaking to each other with words of Scripture, singing the Psalms with praises and spontaneous songs given by the Spirit!
Eph 5:20 Always give thanks to Father God for every person he brings into your life in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Col 3:16 Let the word of Christ live in you richly, flooding you with all wisdom. Apply the Scriptures as you teach and instruct one another with the Psalms, and with festive praises, and with prophetic songs given to you spontaneously by the Spirit, so sing to God with all your hearts!
While both portions of the Word [above] speak of how Christians praise and thank God, the reasons they do so are different. One is due to the infilling of the Spirit, while the other is due to the infilling of the Lord’s Word. By comparing these two portions of the Scriptures, you can see that both the reading of the Word and prayer are something which men experience in the Spirit. You can never separate the Word from the Spirit, for the Word is the embodiment of the Spirit, and the Spirit is deposited in the Word. Under normal circumstances, whenever you have the infilling of the words of the Bible, you also have the infilling of the Spirit. And once you are filled with the Spirit, you cannot help but pray. There are various forms of prayer, such as giving thanks to God, blessing God, singing praises to God, weeping and calling before God, fasting and supplicating before God, etc. All these prayers are due to the Spirit’s moving within man. When you touch the Word, you will surely know the presence of the Spirit within you. Once you realize the presence of the Spirit, you cannot help but pray; otherwise, you are one who quenches the Spirit. Hence, we must always match our reading with prayer.
On the contrary, if you pray but do not read the Scriptures or touch the Word of the Lord, your prayer will inevitably come out of your own idea, thought, view, opinion, and inclination. In order to pray out from the Spirit and not out from yourself, you must have the Lord’s Word. Now, you can understand why in John 15:7 the Lord Jesus first says, “If you abide in Me and My words abide in you;” then He says, “Ask whatever you will, and it shall come to pass to you.” These words show us that if a man learns to always fellowship with the Lord and live in the Lord, His Word will abide in him. One who reads the Word properly is one who abides in the Lord. One who abides outside the Lord is definitely not able to read the Word spiritually; the best he can do is to exercise his mentality to understand; he can never use his spirit to touch the Word. One who abides in the Lord, however, can easily have the Lord’s word abiding in him. Since the Lord’s word thus abides in him, he cannot help but touch the Spirit, for the Lord’s word is spirit. And once he is filled with the Spirit of the Lord, he cannot help but pray. The Lord promises that whatever such a one shall ask, it shall come to pass to him, for at this point, whatever he desires in his heart is not of himself but of the Lord’s word and His Spirit that is the Lord Himself. Hence, in order to have the proper prayer, you must first have the proper reading of the Word.
Thought Of the Day:
You can never separate the Word from the Spirit, for the Word is the embodiment of the Spirit, and the Spirit is deposited in the Word. Under normal circumstances, whenever you have the infilling of the words of the Bible, you also have the infilling of the Spirit. And once you are filled with the Spirit, you cannot help but pray. In order to have the proper prayer, you must first have the proper reading of the Word.
Prayer Confession:
Holy Spirit i thank you that you remind me the scriptures during my prayer time. let me not separate the word from my prayers. Amen
Further Scripture Reading:
2Ti_3:15; Heb_4:12-13
