Meditating On God's Word

Course 1

What is Biblical meditation? I’m glad you asked! Let’s get right into it!

Psalm 119:9-16 says,

“How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your word. With my whole heart I have sought You; Oh, let me not wander from Your commandments! Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You. Blessed are You, O LORD! Teach me Your statutes. With my lips I have declared All the judgments of Your mouth. I have rejoiced in the way of Your testimonies, As much as in all riches. I will meditate on Your precepts, And contemplate Your ways. I will delight myself in Your statutes; I will not forget Your word.”

For a printable version of this lesson click here!

Throughout the Old Testament the Word of God is emphasized. God established the Law to give us clear indication on how to serve Him and others. In the New Testament, John 1:1 tells us of Jesus, that he is the Word that was “In the beginning,” “with God,” and “the Word” “was God.” But how is meditating on Jesus, or on the Word, relevant to us today, and does God command us to meditate on His Word?

Let’s define what meditation in the Biblical sense is first. In Psalm 119, is the word “meditate” from the Hebrew “siach,” pronounced “see-akh.” It means to ponder, to converse with one’s self (about)—to commune, meditate, muse, pray, speak, talk with. Imagine there is something that you have to remember. An important piece of information, like an anniversary, birthday, deadline at work, or perhaps, directions to a place you need to go. It takes some dedication for most of us to commit any of these to memory. How much more would we commit to knowing God more through Biblical Meditation—the prayerful dedication of repetitious thought and consideration of God’s Word.

See how the Psalmist lays out his goal:

“How can a young man cleanse his way?” and a more personal concern, “Oh, let me not wander from Your commandments!”

To accomplish his faithfulness to God, the Psalmist dedicates himself to remembering God’s Law by meditating on it, and he shows us the method by which he does so in s simple formula found in what he says:

1. By taking heed according to Your word.

2. With my whole heart I have sought You;

3. Your word I have hidden in my heart,

4. With my lips I have declared all the judgments of Your mouth.

5. I have rejoiced in the way of Your testimonies,

6. I will meditate on Your precepts

7. contemplate Your ways

8. I will delight myself in Your statutes;

And his result:

“I will not forget Your word.”

In Psalm 119:9-16, Biblical meditation could not be better defined. It is simply the concerted and intentional effort to keep what you’ve read in God’s Word on your mind continuously until it is entirely consumed intellectually. Then, once applied to obedience, eventually delight and life are found in it.

Biblical Meditation is...

simply the concerted and intentional effort to keep what you’ve read in God’s Word on your mind continuously...

But has God commanded us to meditate on His Word?

We can answer that from what God said to the Israelites in

Deuteronomy 11:18-23:

“Therefore you shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, like the days of the heavens above the earth. For if you carefully keep all these commandments which I command you to do—to love the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, and to hold fast to Him—then the Lord will drive out all these nations from before you, and you will dispossess greater and mightier nations than yourselves.”

See verse 18, “lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.” It is a picture of God’s Word being consumed internally (the heart, soul), in our actions (on our hands), and always on our minds (between our eyes). Without repeating the entre passage, the point is simple—the Word of God should be on our minds and present in every part of life.

Why God commands us to meditate on His Word?

In Deuteronomy 11:8&9, God tells the Israelites how to prepare themselves to enter Canaan, the “land of milk and honey” - or The Promised Land. To prepare them, God says,

“Therefore you shall keep every commandment which I command you today, that you may be strong, and go in and possess the land which you cross over to possess, and that you may prolong your days in the land which the Lord swore to give your fathers, to them and their descendants, ‘a land flowing with milk and honey.’”

God says His command to prioritize His Word has two benefits. First, that God’s people may be “strong,” and second, that they may “live long” in the land God has prepared for them, and we know that the Israelites would never reach the promised land unless they obeyed God’s commands.

If we look further, there is a third benefit. Everything that God would establish in the preparation of that Old Covenant represented a future glory. As the author of Hebrews says in 10:1, “For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect.”

The things to come, that in reality could make one perfect, is the eternal life of holiness and perfection through faith in Christ, the Messiah Israel looked towards. The Law was pointing to the New Covenant and how we would recognize and resemble Christ.

Jesus proclaimed, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.” (John 6:63) Jesus also said, in John 6:35, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” The bread of life representing a spiritual food that Jesus provided that would nourish those who were spiritualyl hungry or thirsty. Added, when Jesus taught us how to pray to the Father in Matthew 6:11, he said to pray asking God to “Give us this day our daily bread.”

So then Jesus offers eternal life through faith by which we enter into the glorious eternity to come, but then there is a spiritual sustenance and sustaining we need from him in the present that continues to transform us into his Person allowing us to reap the benefits of our future glory in Heaven—Love, joy, peace, patience, and so on—Galatians 5:22-23. Therefore, by meditating on God’s Word and applying it, we experience the fulfillment of God’s promises in the Messiah, and we taste the eternity benefits in the present—the good things to come spoken of in Hebrews 10:1, etc.

All of this exemplifies one thing, that through Biblical Mediation, God has provided us the extraordinary opportunity of knowing Him and Heaven, things which cannot but touched right now but can still be experienced! What a tremendous gift God has given us in His Word, where within He opens up to us the coming world, His current Kingdom, and the future of that Kingdom— Heaven! In response to the opportunity to look into and meditate on God’s Word, we should be like the man who found a treasure in a field, who for joy over it, sold all he had to purchase that field and own that treasure. (Matthew 13:44) His treasures are waiting for you.

CONGRADULATION!!

You’ve completed the first course in the Beginners Bible Study Series! Well done!!

Your first task in learning how to study the Bible is to practice meditating on God’s Word. Simply read the passage you will be studying and take a day or so to really think about the Scripture you read. Let it sink into your mind and then your heart. In the following Beginners Bible Study Courses, you will learn what proper study of God’s Word is, and meditation is where you it begins.

Ready for the next course? Let’s begin—What is Inductive Bible Study?

Be blessed!

Robert
Cry Out Ministries
Helping you know God more deeply through the study of His Word.