Real Meditation

Meditation if often said to be something that is done in eastern religions.  Buddhists and Hindu worshippers often clear their mind of all worldly thought and focus their minds on both nothing and everything at the same time.  By learning to focus their minds they learn clarity of thought, serenity and self-control.  Many people want to take the lessons of meditation from these other religions and adopt that into Christianity.

But we shouldn’t mix other philosophies with Christianity; we shouldn’t mix truth with the lie.  And the good thing is we don’t have to learn from eastern religions to discover the truth about meditation – the bible had meditation first.

It says this in Genesis 24:63 – “And Isaac went out to meditate in the field toward evening…”  Early saints used to go out into the fields and meditate.  Abraham also meditated – he would go out in the warmest part of the day and sit and be still.

But when the bible uses the term “meditate” it doesn’t mean the same thing that eastern religions mean.  In Joshua 1:8 God says this:

This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.

Let’s dissect this verse.  “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth…” this means that Joshua is commanded to speak words that come from the word of God.  He was meant to understand the teachings of God in such a way that he could explain exactly what God meant and what that meant to daily life.  The first thing we learn about meditation is that godly meditation is first understanding that every part of our lives is directly impacted by our understanding of what God wants us to do.

But in order to have the ability to speak and think as God wants us to speak and think we must first “meditate on it day and night”.  This means that the believer never stops meditating.  The believer first reads and thinks about the word of God and how it impacts his or her life and he doesn’t stop thinking like that even when he sleeps!  That’s how deep Christian meditation is.

The Christian reads and prays to get a message from God.  He believes that God wants to speak directly to him and about his life.  But this is only the first level of meditation.  In the next step the Christian takes that message and thought and expands it so that he is in touch with God every second of the day.

But meditation isn’t just some mental exercise.  We aren’t just supposed to be philosophers.  We meditate “so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it”.  The Christian’s meditation is purposeful – as we focus our thoughts and think and speak the way God would have us to do we will be more obedient and more purposeful.

Some believers struggle with discipline.  Perhaps you have an anger problem, want to lose weight or maybe you have battles with lust.  Did you know that meditation is the key to beating those sins?  The meditation absorbs the thoughts of God and those thoughts naturally do battle with the sinful thoughts that try to enslave us.

And the more we meditate the more successful we will be: “then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success”.  Meditation leads directly to success.  As we focus on God’s thoughts we take on the mind of the victorious.

There are many other benefits to godly meditation – foresight, clarity, vision, wisdom, deeper knowledge, revelation, peace, the hand of God may rest on us, deeper prayer – and you see all of these benefits as you search through God’s word.  As you meditate on the Word of the Lord you will be blessed.

Blessed is the man
    who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
    nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
    and on his law he meditates day and night.