Christian Growth: Pray-reading the Word, Part 1 of 2

YouTube

Christian Growth: Pray-reading the Word, Part 2 of 2

YouTube

@sonship said
Brother Witness Lee did a great service to modern day Christians by encouraging this practice on a large scale to the Christian public in general.

@Ghost-of-a-Duke
Concerning teaching Christians to go directly to the Bible to feed their spirits and see the light of truth -

Brother Witness Lee did a great service to modern day Christians by encouraging this practice on a large scale to the Christian public in general.

The Apostle Paul reminds the church in Corinth that they are an unleavened loaf that should remain unleavened. And the old corrupting leaven that does creep into the church life should be purged out.

"Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, even as you are UNLEAVENED; . . ." ( 1 Cor. 5:6,7a)

The nature of the church is that she should be UNLEAVENED. When the corruption of LEAVEN invades the church it should be recognized, identified, and purged out. And if this calls for protesting that Satan has gained too much ground in the organization of Christians then it should be said - AS a service.

The exposure is not to hurt people's feelings for its own sake. It is the faithful warning that a little leaven has entirely spread and infested into too much of the Christian church.

Leaven is also equated with malice and evil.

"So then let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." (1 Cor. 5:8)

But what if the corrupting leaven as infested almost every branch of an organization which bears the name of Jesus Christ? To rescue the saints a faithful exhortation may be necessary that the seriousness of the departure from the healthy situation may be seen. That is that the devil's subtle influence dragging the saints down, may be exposed to the light of truth. Then we can repent and return to the living God.

If God didn't care He would not have His servants say anything.
Because He does love and care for His people He may prompt a servant who is not a man-pleasure to speak a frank word to serve His people.

"As many as I love I reprove and discipline; be zealous therefore and repent." (Rev. 3:19)

@sonship said
Ghost-of-a-Duke must feel that serving fellow Christians is always one unending stream of commentary flattering. Of course we read through the Bible we see prophets who cared had to sometimes speak words to expose the degree of degradation that had set in.

@Ghost-of-a-Duke

Am I correct that in your childhood you spent some time in Roman Catholicism?

I ask because I have seen staunch atheists who were Catholics as kids, who still nevertheless flinch when they hear criticism of Roman Catholicism. On one hand they cavalierly say "You know I am an unconcerned atheist about it all." But cringe a bit at criticism of degraded organized religion. Maybe their memories are not all that bad about their upbringing in the RCC one of her offshoots.

The parable of the woman who hid leaven in three measures of fine flour said that the entire lump was leavened.

It is not a matter of condemning Christians to Satan. It is a matter of sounding the alarm that he has infiltrated completely the sphere of believers so as to keep them from growing spiritually. This is spiritual warfare.

I am going to bet that though you want the coolness of boasting you're an atheist and have no concern about it, your childhood upbringing still causes a reaction when hear frank critiques of degradation in organized Christianity.

@sonship said
@Ghost-of-a-Duke

Am I correct that in your childhood you spent some time in Roman Catholicism?

I ask because I have seen staunch atheists who were Catholics as kids, who still nevertheless flinch when they hear criticism of Roman Catholicism. On one hand they cavalierly say "You know I am an unconcerned atheist about it all." But cringe a bit at criticism of degr ...[text shortened]... bringing still causes a reaction when hear frank critiques of degradation in organized Christianity.

Pray-reading the word of God is helpful in reconnecting the believer with the Holy Spirit in the word. When you pray over the Scriptures it is not that easy to be led astray by teachings leading one AWAY from Jesus Christ.

Praying over the words of the bible fosters dependence and trust in God.
Some good sounding teaching can water down your appetite for God.
Some good sounding teaching may cool down your love for God.
Some scholarly sounding teaching can sometimes cause one to feel more and more independent from God - trusting rather human wisdom.

A safe guard from not losing one's first love for the living God is to read His word with a prayerful, musing, meditating, even proclaiming spirit.

I think it kills Ghost to recognize this. He seems to want to find "organization of Satan" on every page of Brother Lee's messages. That's all Ghost wants to remember - "organization of Satan".

However an effective way OUT of the spreading influence of God's enemy in the church - ONE way, not THE one and only way - is to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly - praying over the words of the Bible touching the Spirit with our spirit.

Paul exhorted the Ephesians to take the word of God as the sword of the Spirit by means of all prayer.

"And receive the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which Spirit is the word of God,

By means of all prayer and petition, praying at every time in spirit and watching unto this . . . " (Eph. 6:17,18a Recovery Version)

Protect the mind with the "helmet of salvation".
Receive the Holy Spirit as a sword to slay the spiritual enemies.
Taking the word of God " by means of all prayer and petition, praying at every time . . . "

That means praying over and with the word that the word may be an effective offensive weapon to cut through the devil's devices against believers.

Praying the word is for nourishment.
Praying the word of God is also for stabbing the spiritual evil forces to defeat the devil.

Praise the Lord for pray-reading the word of God.

Pray 'or' read the Bible. Indeed do both, separately.

But avoid the slippery slope of pray reading, incantations, repetition, chanting, talking in tongues, mysticism, numerology, charlatan mumbo-jumbo.

@Ghost-of-a-Duke

Okay, Then I stand corrected.
Childhood memories in religion is not your problem according to you.

And hating brothers and sisters caught in the confusion of degraded Christianity organizations is not mine. Nor was it Brother Witness Lee's.

Lee showed remedy, a way OUT, a cure which included every believer not waiting for the clerical class to teach everything. But they themselves should develop a habit to pray-read the words of the Bible that God may speak expressly to our hearts.

"The word of Jehovah came expressly to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans; and the hand of Jehovah was upon him there." (Ezek. 1:3)

Christians should not just sit in pews listening to the pastor give an eloquent sermon week after week. They should develop a "root system" of regular intimate times in the word of God - praying the Bible that God may speak EXPRESSLY to each one.

Then the churches will grow to become organisms of living God and not just organizations susceptible to deadness, corruption, leavening, and the Devil's trickery.

Paul warned that in the last of days some would have the FORM of godliness yet be in denial of the life power of the godly divine life.

"But know this, that in the last days difficult times will come, for men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boasters, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents unthankful, unholy, . . . etc. Having an outward form of godliness, though denying its power; from these also turn away." (see 2 Tim. 3:1-5)

You call praying with the Scriptures a slippery slope?
You have slipped to fall flat a long time ago not even believing in God.

Had you done a little praying over the words of God in the Bible you probably would not have slipped up so badly to think there is no God.

The slippery "OOOPS!" is on you. Better repent and pick yourself up and walk again towards the God who is real and take in His words of salvation.

@sonship said
You call praying with the Scriptures a slippery slope?
You have slipped to fall flat a long time ago not even believing in God.

Had you done a little praying over the words of God in the Bible you probably would not have slipped up so badly to think there is no God.

The slippery "OOOPS!" is on you. Better repent and pick yourself up and walk again towards the God who is real and take in His words of salvation.

@sonship said
@Ghost-of-a-Duke

Okay, Then I stand corrected.
Childhood memories in religion is not your problem according to you.

@ghost-of-a-duke said
According to me? Who else is a greater authority on my own childhood.

You have been floundering in the last few threads trying to find a chink in my atheism. First you fling the weird assumption I was once a Roman Catholic. Wrong! - Then you think you have found me avoiding saying 'all' gods were invented by man. Wrong! I'll happily shout that from the rooftops. Your God and all gods have their origin in the human mind, a mind trying to make sense of existence.