The Meetings and Spiritual Exercise of the Local Church

Additional Quotes about the Local Church by Watchman Nee and Witness Lee

9. Pray-reading

Here, Witness Lee details some of the spiritual benefits of pray-reading the Word; that is, praying the word of God back to Him (Eph. 6:17-18).

We have to continually contact the Spirit within and pray-read the Word without. We do not merely study the Word as a book. We pray-read the Word by calling upon the name of the Lord. We have the Spirit within as the divine power and the holy book without as the great and precious promises. All the riches of the divine life are our portion for us to enjoy. When we enjoy these riches, we will have the expression of life, godliness, in our living. Our living will be one of godliness, the expression of God as life.

Whatever we need will be supplied to us. Submission, patience, humility, love, power, and mercy are all in the divine seed within us. The Body life, the local church life, is included in this godliness. The local church life has been given to us.

…In Ephesians 5 there is the Spirit, and in Colossians 3 there is the Word. Eventually, the Word and the Spirit are one. By comparing these two matching portions of the Scripture, we can see that the Word is the Spirit, and the Spirit is the Word. We can make the Word the Spirit by calling on the name of the Lord and pray-reading. Then the Spirit will be consolidated with the Word. We need to be filled in our spirit and let the word of Christ dwell in us richly. God has given, and God has done everything. Now we need to take the initiative to be filled. If we open the window, the air will come in. We have the Spirit and the Word as the key to being filled. Now we need to exercise our spirit to be filled with the Spirit by letting the word dwell in us richly through calling on the Lord and pray-reading the Word.

(Witness Lee, Growth of Christ, 66-67)

Witness Lee speaks of the profit of pray-reading with others:

For more enjoyment and nourishment and to pray-read the Word properly and adequately, we need the Body, the church. We may enjoy pray-reading the Word privately, but if we try it with a group of other Christians, we will be in the third heavens! The explanation of this is that food is for the whole Body, not merely for one member alone. We do not eat food simply for the sake of our arm; neither should we think that the hand can eat food by itself. No, the food is to be eaten by the Body, and the food is for the Body. The principle is that eating is for the Body, not just for the members. Therefore, the best way to pray-read is with other members of the Body. You will profit by pray-reading alone, but you will see the difference when you come together with other brothers and sisters.

(Witness Lee, Pray-Reading, 12-13)

In “A Time with the Lord,” Witness Lee encourages the believers to set aside some time each day to come to the Word of God:

As people who have God living within them, we need to set aside some time each day to come to the Word of God to enjoy Him, to feed upon Him, and to receive spiritual nourishment. From the experiences and testimonies of others, it is clear that we need to spend at least thirty minutes with the Lord each day to contact Him and be strengthened by Him. During this time we need to read and to pray, and this cannot be done adequately in ten minutes. A longer time is necessary in order to read and pray properly. Even half an hour for reading and praying is too short, but surely we can spend half an hour with the Lord every day to pray-read His Word, and the best time for this is in the morning.

(Witness Lee, Time with the Lord, 2-3)

Main

Meetings

Lord’s Table

Prayer

Prophesying

Small Group

Gospel

Children’s

OT Type

Spiritual Exercise

Reading

Praying

Singing

Speaking

Thanksgiving

Praising

Serving

Calling

Pray-Reading

Bibliography

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