How to Pray the Scriptures and Experience Jesus Personally

Now you can be jealous. You don’t know whether to be jealous; be jealous. Be jealous. I can tell you exactly how to take the scripture and turn it to prayer. It’s very simple. Read the verse and say something to the Lord. Therefore, let us fear, while a promise remains of entering His rest. Any one of you should sing that. Therefore, let us fear lest, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you should seem to have come short of that rest. Lord, I’m afraid. A promise remains to enter Your rest, and I don’t want to come short on it. That’s verse 1.

Verse 2. For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also, but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard. Lord, I have heard the good news preached to me, just as they did, but the word didn’t profit them, because it wasn’t united by faith. Lord, your word speaks to me, and I want to mingle it with faith when I hear it.

Verse 3 For we who have believed enter that rest. Just as it is said, “As I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest,” although His works were finished from the foundation of the world. It’s hard for me to do what I’m doing and think back to that morning. Lord, I have believed in you, and therefore I have entered your rest, and your works were finished before the foundation of the world. Now that’s taking a verse and praying it, but I think you agree with me, you didn’t get a lot out of that. Is that not true? It took us about 20 minutes to get that far that morning, and I think, by the time we had gotten to the end of the page, that’s about where we spent the morning. Yet we did not get off that passage of Scripture.

Let me explain, brothers. It is not taking a verse and uttering it to the Lord. That’s a ritual. Then Gene, what do I do? I don’t know. Do you know how you come into the conscious sense of the Lord’s presence? Say it. I do not know. Only this I can tell you: I have come into the Lord’s presence so often with the scripture, with the written word, that I can open it almost anywhere, and in two or three minutes, I have disappeared, and I don’t know any other way to explain that to you, but that.

This morning, I was reading 1 Thessalonians. Frankly, I don’t even remember where it was. When that passage began, it was as dry and as dead to me as it is to you. It was utterly meaningless. It was just words on the page. You’ve read the Bible that way, have you not? But I have learned to go very, very slow. To take my mind out of gear; to take two or three words and not rush. Whether I get anything out of those words or not, it doesn’t matter. I go to three or four more words, maybe a half a sentence, maybe a whole sentence. Brothers, it is not long before something happens somewhere. What happens? Something. Then what happened? Well, I’ll tell you what happened this morning. I don’t mean to spook you out, but I’m going to tell you what happened. Please don’t put too much stock in the words I use because you’ll think I’m… you will really think I’m crazy. But I’m going to tell you, anyway.

I was no more, I mean, as far as I am concerned, if you’d walked into my room and seen me this morning. I wasn’t there. I had no consciousness of being there. I was sitting in Thessalonica, watching Paul in a room, mending a tent. I saw someone come in who had a big problem. I watched Paul put that tent cloth down and go over to sit. He put his arm around me, and just talked, and listened, and wept, and prayed, and I sat there, and I listened, and I wept, and I prayed. A minute or two or three later, I was walking through the streets of Thessalonica with Paul, listening to him tell a brother, “Brother, when I leave here, you’re going to suffer, just like your brothers in Judea near. Then it just burst on me how much that word came true later. They really did suffer just like the brothers in Judea.

And boy, by the time I got to the next verse, I was ready for it. It said, ‘It doesn’t matter; go ahead and rejoice anyway.” Then I realized that the brothers in Judea rejoiced when they had all those problems, and Stephen was stoned, and I was just so delighted that the brothers in Judea rejoiced in those days. Then I realized what they did to Paul in Thessalonica, how those Thessalonians were left alone, and they rejoiced, and I rejoiced. Then, deep out of my being, I was just telling the Lord, Lord, it is mine, and it is my brothers in Goleta to suffer as the brothers in Judea did, and the brothers in Thessalonica did, and Lord, we are rejoicing too. We have rejoiced, and we do rejoice.

I’m not even sure I can find that passage of scripture, but… gee whiz, I hope I can. I wonder where it is. I don’t know if I began with the very first verse; I don’t think so. I think I was in about verse 4. I’ll read it. For you yourselves know, brother, that my coming to you wasn’t in vain, but after we had already suffered and been mistreated in Philippi, as you know, we had the boldness in our God to speak to you the gospel of God. I’m in much opposition. It’s 1 Thessalonians 2:3, For our exhortation does not come from error or impurity or by the way of deceit, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not as pleasing men, that God examines our hearts. For we never came with flattering speech, as you know, nor did we come with a pretext for greed. God is witness. Now, did we seek glory from men?

This is where I started reading. I think right about here. At least, this is where I began to be stirred by Him. Either from you or from others, even as apostles of Christ, we might have asserted our authority. But we proved to be gentle among you, and that’s where it all started, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children. That dear brother, who has got such an image of being so tender, sat down there and tenderly, tenderly, tenderly held somebody in His arm.

I remember verse 8, too. Having thus a fond affection for you, we’re well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel, but also we imparted to you our souls. Because you have become beloved to us. That just meant so much to me, and I’m just, brothers, I can’t explain it, but I disappeared in there. For you recall, brethren, our labor and our hardship, how, working night and day, so as not to be a burden to any of you. We proclaim to you the gospel of God. That’s as far as I got. I cannot communicate anything to you, but I can tell you, if you’ll start using the scriptures from the neck down, instead of from the neck up, if you cease having a strong consciousness of the scripture…I don’t know how to say it, brother, but that page is a wall, or maybe it’s a door, and you can walk through it. There are times when you can feel that you know exactly how that brother felt, and you can feel every emotion he felt. You keep on praying and keep on receiving a few simple words. You keep on letting it touch you deeply, until finally, there’s just a total identification between what was written, your spirit, and the Lord Himself. You suddenly not only have a new book, but you also have something as living and as vibrant as a human being in front of you.

How do you do that? I don’t know, but you can find out. Please don’t pick up the scripture and say, “Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands. Lord, I want to be a submissive wife. Husbands, love your wife. Lord, I want to love my wife.” You can go all through the Bible that way and never get anywhere. Brothers, I want to assure you that there are several thousand Christians who are doing that. Let them do that. Let them stake out that corner of that. Would you come and be disseminated into God? You can learn to disappear in your spirit.

That’s number one. Here’s number two. I mentioned to y’all recently about how to read. I get a suggestion, and I use my wife as an illustration. It didn’t work for most of you. I have read some with a few sisters, and it’s just perfect. I read with some brothers and some sisters, and it just moves too fast. I remember one day a sister was reading something to me, and boy, I was really touched. I just forgot, and I was sitting there, glorying in that sentence, and I hadn’t said anything. I said to the Lord, and I was just sneaking up on what was going on inside me, and she began reading again. I wanted to say, no, you don’t understand, stop, and yet that sister, she couldn’t know.