How to Contact God through His Word
Our unique goal when we come to the Bible is to contact God through His word.
2 Timothy 3:16 tells us that, “All scripture is God breathed…” This indicates that the Word of God is the breathing out of God. Therefore, His word is breath, or spirit (John 6:63). The Scripture, then, is the embodiment of God as the Spirit.
A good way to illustrate this point is to consider the essential substance in matches, which is phosphorus. For the match to be lit, and for fire to be produced, one must strike the phosphorous in the match. Likewise, in order for us to receive life from the Spirit in the Scripture, we must use our spirit whenever we come to the Word.
Footnote 2 on 2 Tim. 3:16 from the Recovery Version says, “We must strike the Spirit of the Scripture with our spirit to catch the divine fire.”
We need to touch the Spirit, the essence in the Scripture, which is just God Himself, whenever we come to the Bible. Then we’ll “catch the divine fire.” The Lord Jesus directed us to this essence when He said in Matthew 4:4,
“Man shall not live on bread alone but on every word that proceeds out through the mouth of God.”
God’s Word is not just letters on a page. It’s a living word, full of His breath, His essence.
How can we contact God through His Word?
We need to learn how to strike the Spirit of the Scriptures with our spirit. When we use our human spirit (John 4:24) to touch the Spirit in God’s Word we get spirit and life (John 6:63).
The simplest way to “strike the Spirit of the Scriptures with our spirit” is to exercise our spirit to mingle Bible reading with calling on the Lord’s name (1 Cor. 12:3), praying short prayers (Eph. 6:17-18), singing, praising, and giving thanks (Col. 3:16-17).
Here is an excellent quote from William Tyndale:
“Forasmuch then as the scripture is nothing else but that which the Spirit of God hath spoken by the prophets and apostles, and cannot be understood but of the same Spirit; let every man pray to God to send him His Spirit, to loose him from his natural blindness and ignorance, and to give him understanding and feeling of the things of God, and of the speaking of the Spirit of God.”
If we want to understand and be nourished by the Word, we must use our spirit to contact God, the writer, and touch Him as the Spirit in the Word.
Further Resources
For more on this point, you may want to get a copy of “Pray-reading the Word.” You can read it online at ministrybooks.org or you can get your free copy from Bibles for America as a part of Basic Elements of the Christian Life, Volume 3.
Photo credit: Zwaddi
About Daniel Paley
Daniel is a guest contributor for Holding to Truth.
Our spirit is the inner most part of our being, which is composed of three parts: spirit, soul and body. I’ve learned that our body is the physical part and contacts things of the physical realm; the soul is the psychological part that contacts things of the mind, emotion and will, and the spirit is our inner most part that contacts the Spirit, which comprises our heart, intuition, and fellowship with the our Lord God and fellow believers. When we exercise our spirit to contact the Lord, we touch His divine Life and get infused, constituted and transformed.
This is my favorite subject in all the Bible. The Word became flesh, tabernacled among us, and we behold His glory. The God of Glory appears to us in His Word, shines into us as the true light coming into the world, and put the Amen! to God in us. In the last of these days God has spoken to us in the Son…who, being the effulgence of His glory. Praise the Lord for His speaking and His shining in His Word!!
I really enjoy this post of yours and I’ve recently translated it and posted it on my blog. Thank you very much!
Glad you enjoyed the post. It’s fine to translate it. Just give proper attribution to original post. Thanks for the comment.