What Can I Do to Make God’s Written Word Become “Rhema” to Me?

If you want more revelation of the Word, my first recommendation would be to receive the Baptism with the Holy Spirit if you haven’t already done so.  Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would teach you all things (John 14:26).  You can trust Him to do His job if you’re open to Him.  He inspired the entire Bible, so He knows exactly what every verse means!  Ask for His help to understand the Word.

My second recommendation would be to pray Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians contained in Ephesians 1:15-23, and make it personal.  Ask God to give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.  He will!  I have prayed that for myself with great benefit.

My third recommendation is to do as God encouraged Joshua to do – meditate on the Word (Joshua 1:7-8).  This is not Eastern demonic meditation where you try to EMPTY your mind; it’s FILLING your mind with the Word to renew your mind.  In plain terms, think about the Word a lot!  The more you do this, the more it will seem to become a part of you.  It will become natural to act on it instead of acting on what your reasoning and senses tell you.  (See Crossing the Bridge from Head Knowledge to Revelation Knowledge.)

Now that I’ve answered the intent of the question, I should point out that the question itself is actually flawed.  The Greek word rhema simply refers to a spoken word, no more and no less.  It does NOT carry the connotation of a “direct revelation from God,” even though if you walk in certain circles you’ve probably heard teaching that makes it seem that way.  For example, “We need to get God’s written Word – logos – to be “rhema” revelation to us– a direct word from God!”  But the Greek word logos also means a spoken word and it is so used all over the New Testament.  Jesus is called the Word (logos) in John 1:1, and He is not a written word in a book!  So what is the crucial difference between logos and rhema?  Actually, you can’t make a biblical distinction when you see how both words are used.  The terms are basically just as interchangeable as “kingdom of heaven” and “kingdom of God” in Bible usage.  (Some people claim there is a difference there, too, but that is unsupportable in Scripture – they mean the same thing, as you can see if you study where those two terms are used.)  Rhema just means word, nothing more.

So I suppose that for consistency’s sake, the best time to pray for a “rhema word” would be while entering your PIN number into an ATM machine.  Then you’d be asking for a “word word” while entering your “personal identification number number” into an “automated teller machine machine.”