It’s not easy to express the experience of the spirit, but I will try. Let’s take singing and worship as an example. First, we have to sing with our spirits. Of course, we also use our mouths. We don’t need to sing too loudly; don’t let your singing disturb your spirit. What’s important is not how beautifully you sing, but that you sing to the Lord from your heart, and your body is helping your spirit to express it.
When we behold, we see His glory and are transformed. When we sing hymns, we are beholding His glory and beauty through setting the truths before us line by line or image after image, according to the content of the hymns. Each line of the lyrics express how He is towards you and how He loves you. Therefore, when you are beholding, you should have enjoyment, enjoying His love for you . This is also the key about singing; we are not merely singing a hymn.
We shouldn’t complicate things either. I sometimes explain about the hymns in detail, but when you sing, do not focus on trying to absorb all that or go beyond my insights. It’s okay to go beyond, but you shouldn’t be thinking hard, trying to come up with new or deeper meanings. If you complicate things with all sorts of thoughts, you lose your focus on the Lord. You would be thinking more of the things about the Lord rather than the Lord Himself. You might still have enjoyment, but you miss the most important enjoyment–to have fellowship with Him. He is the center; we are to have fellowship with Him, not just to sing or to meditate on hymns. We are having fellowship with Him. We are singing to Him. We are expressing to Him that we treasure Him and the precious truths.
Also, during worship, we deepen our love relationship with Him. So, we need to sing each line from the bottom of our hearts, realizing and visualizing the scenes one by one. You don’t need to think too much. My hymns are very clear and straightforward. You can understand them as soon as you sing them. There’s no need to think, “I don’t understand the meaning behind it enough!” The Lord can open your eyes anytime, and insights will come naturally. In fact, the lyrics themselves are already very deep, inclusive, and powerful; so just enjoy them. We should leave it to Him if He’d like to give you more. Don’t complicate things. It would only hinder your enjoyment. We are having fellowship with Him, not studying the hymns or preparing for “hymn sharings”.
We also don’t need to respond too much. You may find some of my responses long in my demonstration. For those responses in the demonstration, we can also enjoy them sentence by sentence, just like when we are singing the hymns. For example, based on the hymns, when they talk about how the Father swore to set His Beloved Son to be my priest forever (Psalm 110:4), or how the Lord became a Man for me, and the Lord being nailed on the cross, I may respond longer for these truths.
You don’t have to try to come up with even more new insights apart from the ones that you have heard from me. Let them come naturally, as the Lord and the Holy Spirit will speak to you. Don’t try hard to dig out some insights. What’s important is that you enjoy Him and have fellowship with Him. The lyrics themselves are already quite powerful and abundant. He can give you insights anytime. Even to this date, He continues to reveal to me. But it’s not by me trying very hard to think of more new insights. On the contrary, you should enjoy Him, this is the most important, above all things. Your heart has love interflow and fellowship with Him, being heart to heart with Him. It’s about Him. When your heart is most drawn by Him, what He gives to you at that moment is the most precious. It is enough when you enjoy Him and are drawn by Him. It’s sufficient if you can feel you love Him and treasure Him more. We are not just looking for new enlightenments.
When you respond, do not complicate things either, or else it could become a hindrance. As mentioned earlier, I respond longer only for certain parts. Your response should be like when you are singing to Him, sentence by sentence with feelings. Simply put, singing and worship are naturally realizing the truths in the hymns. That’s enough. Nothing more. It’s okay if you want to make use of my responses, but you should treat them like the lyrics in the hymns. enjoying line by line. For example, I respond and pray, “Father, you have sworn and will not relent, for your Beloved Son to be my High Priest forever.” You should say it slowly from your heart, realizing this truth. “You sent Your Beloved Son to be a Man forever for me.” You should realize how precious this is. Of course this one sentence means a lot, but you should just enjoy it as much as you can. Many of my hymns talk about the Lord becoming a Man forever. It’s enough to enjoy whatever you can at that moment. He can give you new thoughts anytime, and He will open His heart. If He doesn’t open His heart, you’ll only be wasting your time trying to think of something. We need to enjoy Him. The enlightenment that I have was not gained by my own effort in thinking hard. Some of them came when I was sharing messages.
You must enjoy Him; for in Him, there are unsearchable riches, wisdom, and knowledge. He will provide for your needs at the right time. He desires a deeper relationship with you and He will continue to open His heart. What’s important is that you enjoy Him and have fellowship with Him.
Don’t complicate it. Otherwise, if you were to spend so much time on each line looking for new insights, and at the end, you would neglect having fellowship with Him. It would be like me talking to somebody who has just handed me an article that he wrote. Then imagine, instead of me talking to him, I was just preoccupied with the article, thinking, “What’s this article all about?” It would also be like somebody who wrote a letter to his lover, but the lover only focused on analyzing the letter and forgot all about communicating with him, neglecting him.
Sing from the bottom of your heart, and respond from the bottom of your heart. Don’t make it complicated. Simply responding with “Thank you” is good enough. You might think it’s too simple, not rich enough, but actually, giving thanks is very precious. It’s important that our hearts are touched by His grace. The Bible says God treasures our thanksgivings. However, your thanksgivings don’t need to be very long. The most important is that your heart is filled with thanksgiving, and you treasure His love for you. It’s that simple. After singing one line and realizing how much Abba loves us, you can simply respond, “Abba, thank you.” Don’t say too much and disturb your enjoyment. What’s important is your enjoyment and your continual intimate love fellowship with Him, being heart to heart with Him.
Sometimes, we say, “Lord, I love You.” Especially after singing the whole song, seeing His love, your heart just flows forth this love response; even for over a minute, you might continue to say, “Lord, I love You. I love You…” This is very good, even if you only say the same sentence. Don’t complicate it. Whatever you say cannot be compared to “I love You”. Of course, you can also say other words that come naturally to you. But keep them simple and don’t distract yourself from your fellowship with the Lord, your enjoyment, or your embrace with Him.