"Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."

When we try to approach the word through our own reasoning, like in the case of our brother above, the word becomes heavy and legalistic and we get no life out of it. Jesus is the source of Spiritual-Life and when what we are doing is in obedience to Jesus, we are entered into His rest and we are walking in faith and we receive His Spiritual-Life. Jesus said in John 6:63, "It is the Spirit who creates-spiritual-life¹², the flesh prophets nothing." Christianity is relationship with Jesus. It is not a heard of cattle all following the same rules for an intended outcome. Christianity is a relationship with a person: Jesus Christ. Only as we relate to that Person and obey his commands to each of us personally and individually does it become a living relationship and do we grow in that relationship. (John 14:21). Only when we obey Jesus in our approach to him does He promise to reveal and manifest himself to us concerning ourselves, problems and needs. This is why we are not to compare ourselves with what others are doing.

When Jesus got through telling Peter the way he was going to die, Peter looked over at the Apostle John and said to Jesus, Lord, what about this man? Jesus said to Peter in response, If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow Me! (John 21:21). Jesus says to us in this passage that we are not to concern ourselves with how He leads our brother or sister. What we need to concern ourselves with is how He is leading us. What is He telling You to do? That is what you need to do and be concerned with.

Only when what you do is out of Jesus' initiative through the Holy Spirit will you then find spiritual-life in it and Jesus' strength and might to overcome the problems in your life. Christianity is not a self-sanctification program, it is allowing Jesus to live His live through us through the power of the Holy Spirit. When you do what you do as a result of Jesus' command to you personally, you are assured His spiritual-life and strength to carry it out and to find life and meaning in what you do.

Without exception every person that I know who has approached Jesus in this way about their daily feeding on Jesus and His Word has been given a specific amount of time and in some cases a specific way Jesus wants them to approach Him and His Word. Jesus will give you a specific amount of time, but He may leave it up to you to decide how you want to approach the Word in your use of that time. In my own life, when Jesus first taught me this principle, He had me start with a half-hour a day in the Word; and He had me using a method of reading that got me through the whole Bible in one-hundred and twenty days. A year later He led me to increase it to an hour and just do Scripture memory for that hour. Now I am memorizing one day and just reading the Scriptures the next day for forty-five minutes. Fifteen minutes of that time is spent in prayer.

A half-hour a day to some people may seem like a lot to start with, but you must understand that before I sought the Lord about how much time He wanted me to spend in the Word, I was spending an average of three hours a day in the Word and getting nothing else done. I did not find it easy to cut down to half-an-hour because in those days I thought how long I spent praying and reading the Word determined how spiritual I was; but I had to learn that Jesus was the answer to my needs not how long I spent in the Word. Jesus may only have you start with five minutes a day depending on who you are and His individual plan and purpose for your life. Jesus said to the Scribes and Pharisees who were claiming to base their lives on the Word of God, which they were using as a bases for rejecting Him,

You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life¹³; and it is these that bear witness of Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me that you may have Life." (John 5:39-40).

Jesus knows our limits of endurance and how much time, at present, we can handle faithfully in His Word. Once Jesus gives you a specific amount of time, obey Jesus in this. Do not spend less time or more time. When the Israelites went out into the desert to collect manna, a food substance that daily came down from heaven in the form of a dew, God gave them specific instructions not to collect more than what they needed for the day's provision.⁸⁰ If they disobeyed God and collected more than what they needed, the extra would rot and breed worms. Jesus said in the Gospel of John,

"If any one serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there shall My servant also be; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him." (Jn 12:26).

When Jesus gives you a specific amount of time to spend in the Word, He is telling you He will be present in that time to anoint and bless it. Beyond that, He does not assure His blessing. He is telling you that that amount of time is sufficient for your needs and His present plan and purpose for your life. Anything outside of what Jesus tells you to do for your daily feeding on Jesus and His Word will lead to religious strife, and humanism— flesh. "It is the Spirit who creates-spiritual-life, the flesh profits nothing" Jesus said, "the words that I have spoken to you are Spirit and are life" (Jn 6:63). This is what Jesus means when He says,

"Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My load is light." (Matt 11:28-30).

Christianity is not religion. It is not our praying hard enough, long enough and reading the Word long enough to gain Jesus' acceptance. Christianity is accepting the fact that we are already accepted by God through Jesus and resting in Jesus' Lordship and only taking upon ourselves what Jesus Himself lays upon us. He says, My yoke is easy, and My load is light. Jesus is infinite and can communicate just as much information in five faithful minutes as He can in a faithful hour.

Jesus' concern is not how much time you spend daily feeding on Him and His Word, His concern is that you spend time daily as directed by Him. Jesus' promise is that if we will obey Him, He will manifest Himself to us; not if we beg Him through long religious ritual.⁸¹ Since Jesus created us, He knows us intimately; therefore, He knows best how to manage our lives and what the present limits of our endurance are. The Bible says He who is faithful in little will be faithful in much.⁸² Jesus says, if we are faithful in little, in His time He will add more to our lives; but at present, concerning our daily feeding on Jesus and His Word, He only wants us to be concerned with the amount of time He has presently instructed us to use, and how He wants us to use that time. This is because it is a part of the working out of His over all, long-range plan for our lives, and it is also His way of making us more dependent on Him.

Interestingly enough, when I began to obey Jesus in the use of my daily feeding on Him and His Word, I found I was also getting ten times more done in a week in the other areas of my life than I had before. Why was this? As I obeyed Jesus in the use of my daily feeding on Him and His Word, I found that I was able also to obey His restraints over the other areas of my life. This is part of what the Bible means when it says, He who is faithful in little will be faithful in much. This makes perfect sense. Why? if we cannot restrain ourselves and obey Jesus in our daily feeding on him and His Word, we are not going to obey Him in the other areas of our lives either. If we can obey Jesus in taking the time to acknowledge Him in our day, we will then be able to obey Him and His leading in our life in the rest of our day. This is what the Writer of Proverbs means when he says, "In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight." (Prov 3:6).

Being filled with the Holy Spirit is allowing Jesus to be Lord of Your life. Walking in the Holy Spirit is allowing Jesus to be the source of your life in every detail and in every respect. The Baptism of the Holy Spirit is allowing Jesus to be Savior, Lord and Source of Life to others through your life.⁷⁹ What we have discussed in this chapter is an aspect of what it means to walk in the Holy Spirit. When you daily feed on Jesus and His word and make Him Your source, you are walking in the Holy Spirit.