What life does to us depends on what life finds in us (1). Proverbs 4:23 tells us to keep our hearts or our spirit with all diligence for the issues of life flow out of it. That really means that what we have inside determines how we deal with what comes on the outside!
Meditation in the Word on a daily basis will build the Word up inside you so that you’ll begin to live from the inside instead of being swayed by outward circumstances.
This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe 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 (Joshua 1:8). But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper (Psalm 1:2-3).
The Hebrew word for meditation is Hagâ and means to growl, utter, or moan as well as meditate or muse. Meditation involved a muttering sound from reading half aloud or conversing with oneself.(2) Take time each day to meditate on scriptures that relevant to what you dealing with in life. I’ve been taking time to meditate in the word now for many years, and this practice has changed my life.
Instead of just reading the word, you must slow down and let the word revolve over and over in your mind. Speak a scripture over and over to yourself and talk about how it applies to you out loud in a low tone. This is meditation.
Meditation drops the Word from you mind to your spirit. It causes the Word to become infused into your inner belief system, your subconscious mind as the psychologist calls it. It’s really your human spirit that these phrases are referring to. Meditation replaces wrong thinking with right thinking!
I’ll leave you with a quote from E.W Kenyon about meditation that has changed my life:
The most deeply spiritual men and women I know are people who have given much time to meditation. You cannot develop spiritual wisdom without meditation. Joshua 1:8 – This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. (or, you will be able to deal wisely in the affairs of life. Take time to meditate in the Word. Shut yourself in alone with your own spirit where the clamor of the world is shut out. If you are ambitious to do something worthwhile, I would suggest that you take ten or fifteen minutes daily for meditation…learn to do it. In other words, begin the development of your own spirit. You may develop any gift that you wish to. The most important gift that God has given to you is the spirit. It is the development of this spirit that is going to mean more to you than any other one thing. The great majority of men do not think. They live in the realm of the senses. The senses have limitations. Your spirit has practically no limitations. You can develop your spirit life until you dominate circumstances. Your spirit can come into vital union with Deity, become a partaker of the Divine nature. That spirit, with God’s nature in it, can fellowship with God on terms of absolute equality with God Himself. Do you see your limitless possibilities? Jesus brings us into contact with spiritual things, not mental things. Spiritual things are as real as physical things. Your spirit can come to the point where the things of His Word will become as real to you, and Jesus will become as real to you as any loved one. You can see the necessity of your taking time to meditate, to get quiet with the Lord. You must take time to sit with His Word and let the Spirit unveil His Word to your spirit. If you will, you will know Him in reality.[3]
(1) (from The Bible Exposition Commentary: Old Testament © 2001-2004 by Warren W. Wiersbe. All rights reserved.)
(2) (from International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, revised edition, Copyright © 1979 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. All rights reserved.)
(3) From The Hidden Man by E.W. Kenyon (Lynnwood, Washington: Kenyon’s Gospel Publishing Society, 1970), p. 153-154
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