Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
Today I want to present some practical ways to meditate upon God’s word, our testimonies in God, and who God is. As I have written, the Hebrew concept of meditation is “to murmur (in pleasure or anger); by implication, to ponder. It is an active partnership with God’s Spirit. This could be expressed as muttering on our part. To mutter is to speak the word under your breath, or quietly to yourself. We mutter all the time, usually without even realizing it. We talk out loud to ourselves concerning the normal process of our days. We might say, “where did I put those keys,” or, “how come this car doesn’t start in the morning”, etc… If we really stopped to think about it, we would probably conclude that most our muttering is probably negative, if we haven’t been training ourselves in biblical meditation (Josh. 1:8). We express the inner core of our being with expression of our voice, our attitudes, and even our physical expressions. It is not just what we say, but why we say it and how we say it.
Romans 10:8 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): 9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
These verses in Romans are not merely verses for confessing Jesus for a born-again experience of salvation. These verses are quoting the words of Moses when God instructed His people as to how to live their everyday lives in the Promised Land (Deut. 30:11-20). They were to make a confession with their mouths because of a personal relationship with God in their lives. This is especially true in our everyday lives in the New Covenant because our personal connection to God is in our hearts. It is in the place where He writes His perfect law of liberty in our hearts and minds.
Our soul manifests our thoughts, reasoning, imagination, emotions, and desires. Therefore, when we meditate, or mutter on the goodness of God, it will bring fatness to our thoughts, reasoning, imagination, emotions, and desires. Our soul is not the part of our being that creates our thoughts, reasoning, imagination, emotions, and desires; it is simply the throne of our being that empowers our articulation and expression of them. Our soul is meant to be motivated by our spirit from within. Our spirit is our connection to God. When Holy Spirit stirs our human spirit, our human spirit floods our soul with thoughts, reasoning, imagination, emotions, and desires that come from God. When our flesh, or some outside influence temps us to yield our soul to be a door instead of a window, we become motivated in these things from an illegitimate source. Therefore, we must position our lives to invite God’s Spirit to empower our spirit from within. This will produce a voice of faith; a voice that comes by hearing God in our hearts. Our spirits are inspired by the Spirit of God and thus our spirits inspire our souls. Our souls respond by making a confession that can be heard and seen in our world. The fruit is life in our world. This testimony is the result of an appearing of Christ within us.
Proverbs 8:7 For my mouth will speak truth; wickedness is an abomination to my lips.
Psalms 35:28 And my tongue shall speak of Your righteousness and of Your praise all the day long.
Psalms 37:30 The mouth of the righteous speaks wisdom, and his tongue talks of justice. 31 The law of his God is in his heart; none of his steps shall slide.
Psalms 45:1 My heart is overflowing with a good theme; I recite my composition concerning the King; my tongue is the pen of a ready writer.
Psalms 63:5 My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips. 6 When I remember You on my bed, I meditate on You in the night watches.
Sometimes the word for meditate in the Scripture is translated as the word speak, but it is the same Hebrew word that is translated meditate in other verses in the Old Testament (HSRN 1897).When we are speaking the word of God out loud to ourselves, or even to others, and telling of His great power we are actually involved in meditation.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
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