The Indispensable Discipline of Meditation

You are what you think, believe, and desire. That’s a truism we all need to understand. It’s true, not because we have observed it to be so, but because it is the way God designed us to function. Proverbs 4:23 says it this way: Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

Biblically speaking, the heart is the central command center of our lives. It includes the mind, emotions, and will. Basically, this is how it works out in daily life: What we take into our mind impacts how we respond to our emotions, and informs our will to believe God’s truth or the world’s lies. Therefore, it is of crucial importance for the believer in Christ to think rightly, to develop a truly Christian mind.

This is a critical part of being a faithful follower of Jesus Christ. Without feeding on the Word of God as our daily bread, it will be impossible to be a faithful follower of Christ. Why? Because loving God is directly connected to loving the Word of God. In other words, your success as a follower of Christ (in the eyes of God, not necessarily in the eyes of men) is directly connected to the priority you place upon God’s Word.

Biblically, success is measured by one’s faithfulness to God, not by his fame or accumulation of material things. In God’s eyes, success is daily meditating on the Word of God to the extent that it stirs your heart to worship, renews your mind to think biblically, and transforms your life into Christlikeness. This is clearly stated by God himself, to Joshua, before he led the people into the Promised Land.

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. (Joshua 1:8)

Since our worship of God is guided by His revelation in Scripture, it is appropriate that the Old Testament book on worship begins with the same theme. Psalm 1 defines success according to God, and its link to meditation. It spells out the essential difference between a godly person and a worldly person. It begins by describing the person who is a success in God’s eyes, and ends with a description of the wicked—the kind of person who lives outside of God’s family.

Consider taking time this week to meditate on Psalm 1.

Listen to the sermon, “Meditate on the Word” by searching on the title here.

Print this entry