The Puritan and Biblical Meditation for Today

British preacher John Blanchard wrote the following: "Surely we only have to be realistic and honest with ourselves to know how regularly we need to turn to the Bible. How often do we face problems, temptations and pressure? Every day! Then how often do we need instruction, guidance and greater encouragement? Every day! To catch all these felt needs up into an even greater issue, how often do we need to see God’s face, hear his voice, feel his touch, know his power? Every day! As the American evangelist D. L. Moody put it, "A man can no more take in a supply of grace for the future than he can eat enough for the next six months, or take sufficient air into his lungs at one time to sustain life for a week. We must draw upon God’s boundless store of grace from day to day as we need it."

In John 15 the abiding of the living Word through the written Word will bear fruit- the fruit of salvation, the fruit of sanctification, the fruit of the spirit like love and joy, the fruit of informed prayer, and the fruit of an experiential intimacy with God.

The key to this is biblical meditation.

Biblical meditation is not simply hearing.
Biblical meditation is not simply reading.
Biblical meditation is not studying.
Biblical meditation is not just memorizing.

Biblical meditation is "deep thinking on the truths and spiritual realities as revealed in Scripture for the purposes of understanding, application, and prayer [for God’s glory and our edification]." Dr. Donald Whitney

From the very beginning of Scripture until the end the focus is upon the living Word and the written Word. If you want a dynamic and an informed experiential faith you must understand that.

What was the tact used in the garden by the serpent? He distorted what God had actually said.

When Jesus was in the wilderness what was the tact used by the enemy? He indirectly and then directly used the Word of God in a distorted fashion to tempt Jesus to sin.

Biblical meditation is more than an accumulation of Bible facts and memorizing Scripture. The enemy knows Scripture. The enemy uses it in a distorted fashion against us.
At the end of the book of Revelation John clearly states that if anyone adds or subtracts from the prophecy of the book they will be judged.

There are around 20 instances of the use of the word ‘meditate’, and over 100 instances of the word ‘think’ that I counted.

Here are a few:
-Joshua 1:6-9. There is a connection between success, prosperity and meditation. This is prosperity of the soul in a holistic fashion, spiritual success in maturity, and some measure of success in human endeavor because you are living with God’s wisdom. True success is promised to those who meditate on God’s Word, who think deeply on Scripture, not just at one time each day, but at moments throughout the day and night. They meditate so much that Scripture saturates their conversation. The fruit of their meditation is action.
-Psalm 39:3. When we hear, read, study, and memorize the fire of God’s Word, the addition of meditation becomes like a bellows upon what we’ve taken in. As the fire blazes more brightly, it gives off both more light (insight and understanding) and heat (passion for obedient action).
-Thomas Watson said, "The reason we come away so cold from reading the word is, because we do not warm ourselves at the fire of meditation."

The right attitude

-2 Timothy 2:7
-This is the sweat equity of thinking. John Piper said, "The gift of illumination does not replace meditation. It comes through meditation. The promise of divine light is not made to all. It is made to those who think. (Don’t confuse thinking with intelligence).

-Meditation always involves two people—the Christian and the Holy Spirit. Meditating over a text is the invitation for the Holy Spirit to hold his divine light over the words of Scripture to show you what you cannot see without Him.

-I Timothy 4:7 told us to train ourselves to godliness. This is sweat equity of discipline. Paul said ‘just do it’ baby long before Nike came up with that slogan.

-R. C. Sproul said, "Here then, is the real problem of our negligence. We fail in our duty to study God’s Word not so much because it is difficult to understand, not so much because it is dull and boring, but because it is work. Our problem is not a lack of intelligence or a lack of passion. Our problem is that we are lazy."

-You have the sweat equity of commitment that is involved. You are not going to glean from this blessing if you are hit and miss. Maurice Roberts wrote the following, "Our age has been sadly deficient in what may be termed spiritual greatness. At the root of this is the modern disease of shallowness. We are too impatient to meditate on the faith we profess….It is not the busy skimming over religious books or the careless hastening through religious duties which makes for a strong Christian faith. Rather, it is unhurried meditation on gospel truths and the exposing of our minds to these truths that yields the fruit of sanctified character."

-Welsh pastor Geoffrey Thomas wrote, "Do not expect to master the Bible in a day, or a month, or a year. Rather expect often to be puzzled by its contents. It is not all equally clear. Great men of God often feel like absolute novices when they read the Word….So do not expect always to get an emotional charge or a feeling of quiet peace when you read the Bible. By the grace of God you may expect that to be a frequent experience, but often you will get no emotional response at all. Let the Word break over your heart and mind again and again as the years go by, and imperceptibly there will come great changes in your attitude and outlook and conduct. You will probably be the last to recognize these. Often you will feel very, very small, because increasingly the God of the Bible will become to you wonderfully great. So go on reading it until you can read no longer, and then you will not need the Bible any more, because when your eyes close for the last time in death, and never again read the Word of God in Scripture you will open them to the Word of God in the flesh, that same Jesus of the Bible whom you have known for so long, standing before you to take you for ever to His eternal home."

The right approach

-Matthew 22:37-40. The Word assists me to do this; to have a right view of God, others, and self in a holistic sense. I start with the eternal and move to the temporal. I start with God, and move to others, and then self.
This puts me in the right frame of mind in biblical meditation and prayer. In other words, I am better prepared to pray about temporal things after I have gone through the filter of the eternal. I gain a better perspective on God, His attributes, His character, His principles, His promises, and His priorities.

The right application (how and what)

-How do I do this? I start each day with my Bible, and my journal. I begin the day by reading a Psalm or Proverb. I begin by focusing on something about God. I think about it. I reflect upon it. I recall anything that happened recently where I would have observed that about God. I let that attribute saturate my mind and wash over my heart. I allow it to inform me, nurture me, purify me, cleanse me, strengthen me, heal me, and so forth. I worship Him for that attribute. I thank and praise Him for where I saw that characteristic of God demonstrated. I write down my thoughts, or words, or phrases, observations, or confirmations, etc. I then allow and sometime concurrently allow that to reveal to me my own deficiencies and sins. And, also share from my heart those things that are a burden to me. I search out promises to keep and principles to obey. But, I do not do this generally speaking until I have allowed God’s Word to penetrate me wholly. And finally, I intercede for others. I also read through another book of the Bible-start to finish.

-What I am doing is establishing a general pattern of the discipline of biblical meditation in my life so that I am already being prepared and informed for those particular times where specific and more urgent things are required to be addressed. The more I practice biblical meditation, the more my focus is eternal and less temporal, the more prepared I am for life’s decisions and circumstances, etc. I want to be active and not reactive.

-The effect upon me is abiding love, overflowing joy, peace beyond understanding, precious intimacy with God, sweet fellowship with you all, and a right sense about the lostness of men.

-The Bible does not address every issue, but the more I am in the Word and the Word gets into me the more I have an understanding of the heart and mind of God, which informs my prayer and my decision making. God calls us through the Scriptures to develop the practice of dwelling on Him in our thoughts. Occasional thoughts are not meditation.

-Will the practice of biblical meditation be worth the sweat equity of thinking, the sweat equity of discipline, and the sweat equity of commitment that is involved?

-"It is a help to knowledge, thereby your knowledge is raised. Thereby your memory is strengthened. Thereby your hearts are warmed. Thereby you will be freed from sinful thoughts. Thereby your hearts will be tuned to every duty. Thereby you will grow in grace. Thereby you will fill up all the chinks and crevices of your lives, and know how to spend your spare time, and improve that for God. Thereby you will draw good out of evil. And thereby you will converse with God, have communion with God, and enjoy God. And I pray, is not here profit enough to sweeten the voyage of your thoughts in meditation?" William Bridges