Friday

Related Verses
Rom. 12:2
2 And do not be fashioned according to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and well pleasing and perfect.

2 Tim. 3:16
16 All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for conviction, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,

Deut. 8:6-10
6 Therefore keep the commandments of Jehovah your God, walking in His ways and fearing Him.
7 For Jehovah your God is bringing you to a good land, a land of waterbrooks, of springs and of fountains, flowing forth in valleys and in mountains;
8 A land of wheat and barley and vines and fig trees and pomegranates; a land of olive trees with oil and of honey;
9 A land in which you will eat bread without scarcity; you will not lack anything in it; a land whose stones are iron, and from whose mountains you can mine copper.
10 And you shall eat and be satisfied, and you shall bless Jehovah your God for the good land which He has given you.

Exo. 3:8
8 And I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites.

Col. 1:12
12 Giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you for a share of the allotted portion of the saints in the light;

Related Reading
With the children of Israel from the passover to the entering of the good land, there were two generations…This indicates that we believers have two generations. We were saved with the first generation, but we will enter the good land with the second generation. The first generation is our old man, and the second generation is our new man.

With the exception of Joshua and Caleb, who had another spirit, the first generation died out. Joshua and Caleb belonged to the new generation, not to the old generation. That is why they experienced a double baptism…The old generation passed through the Red Sea, but it was the new generation that crossed the Jordan. (Life-study of 1 Corinthians, second edition, p. 432)

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During the forty years between passing through the Red Sea and crossing the Jordan River, there were many dealings related to transformation. This means that, spiritually speaking, during this time the children of Israel were transformed. Yes, the old generation was strewn in the wilderness, and this is a warning to us. But a new generation came forth. This is transformation.

We in the Lord’s recovery need to grow in life…To grow in life is…to eliminate the old generation and to be renewed in our mind, emotion, and will. This involves transformation. Transformation is a matter of eliminating the old generation, the old man, and putting on the new generation, the new man.

Today we are enjoying Christ, but we have not yet possessed Him as the all-inclusive land. If we would possess Christ in this way, our old man must die out, and the new man must come forth…Many of us can testify that since we have come into the Lord’s recovery, a change has taken place within us. This change is the dying out of the old man and the growing up of the new man. This is transformation, the growth in life. (Life-study of 1 Corinthians, second edition, pp. 432-434)

In Deuteronomy expressions such as law, commandments, statutes, ordinances, and judgments are synonyms of Christ…We should simply take Him, keep Him, and hold fast to Him. If we do this, we will enjoy Him.

The Christ whom we should take, keep, hold fast, and enjoy…is in the Bible, for He is God’s unique word. The law, the commandments, the statutes, the ordinances, the judgments—all these are God’s word. This is proved by Psalm 119, which clearly indicates that these expressions are different terms for God’s word. They have all been spoken by God and thus are things which have proceeded out of God’s mouth (Deut. 8:3). Now we need to see that the words which proceed out of the mouth of God are Christ. Christ is the totality, the aggregate, of God’s word. This is the reason that He is even called the Word (John 1:1, 14). In the beginning was the Word, the Word was God, the Word was incarnated, and this incarnated Word is Jesus Christ.

“All Scripture is God-breathed” (2 Tim. 3:16a). Therefore, we may say that the Bible is something exhaled by God. Now we need to inhale what God has exhaled. When we inhale the word of God and it enters into our being, this inhaled word becomes the Spirit. When we exhale what we have inhaled of the Bible by speaking it to others, it is the word…It is by the Christ as the word which we inhale that we can fulfill God’s requirements.

[When] in Matthew 4:4 the Lord Jesus quoted Deuteronomy 8:3, saying, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out through the mouth of God,”…He surely knew that “every word” refers to the law, the commandments, the ordinances, the statutes, and the judgments. All these are the words that have proceeded out of God’s mouth as God’s breathing, and they all refer to Christ. Therefore, to live by every word that proceeds out through the mouth of God is to live by Christ. (Life-study of Deuteronomy, pp. 42-43, 56)

Further Reading: Life-study of 1 Corinthians, msg. 48