Meditating On God’s Word -prince

[b]Meditating On God’s Word[/b]
By Derek Prince

Do you want God’s best? If you want God’s best, the first thing you have to do is make up your mind, that you do want God’s best. This is the basic, key decision. You have to want God’s best, and you have to decide that you will settle for nothing less than God’s best. God will not force this choice on us. It rests with us to make this decision....

One thing that is most important for you to do if you want God’s best is to meditate on God’s Word. Fill your mind with the Word of God. Take a look at the example of Joshua and the instructions the Lord gave him as he was about to lead Israel into their inheritance.

"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).

That last part, "you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success," is equivalent to saying, "you will find God’s best." What are the conditions? There are three of them, and they all relate to God’s Word:

1. The Word is "not [to] depart from your mouth."
2. You are to "meditate in it day and night"--that means continually.
3. You are to "observe to do according to all that is written in it."

I have sometimes summed it up in three simple phrases. If you want God’s best, if you want to make your way prosperous and have good success, these are the three things you must do: think God’s Word, speak God’s Word, and act God’s Word. I put thinking first because if you do not think, you will never fully speak. If you do not think and speak, you will never fully act. The result of doing all three is success--God’s best.

You might say, "That was Joshua. How do I know that will work for me?" The first Psalm has a similar promise with a similar instruction, and it is for anybody who meets the conditions. It is all-inclusive. It does not matter who the person is; all that matters is that the person meets the conditions.

"Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.
"But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.
"He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers" (Psalm 1:1-3).

Take note of the closing sentence: "Whatever he does prospers." That is finding God’s best; that is true success. This can be true of any man who meets the conditions. The conditions are five-fold. The first three are negative; in other words, they are things you must not do:

1. You must not walk in the counsel of the wicked.
2. You must not stand in the way of sinners.
3. You must not sit in the seat of mockers.

The key issue is where you get your counsel. If you get your counsel from the wrong source, then your whole life will go wrong. The three negative conditions are then followed by two positive conditions:

1. Your delight must be in the law of the Lord.
2. On His law, you must meditate day and night.

Notice that both of the positive conditions center on the law of the Lord, or the Word of God. First, you have to delight yourself in His law. Second, you have to meditate on it day and night. Notice again that right meditation is the key to success--meditating on God’s Word day and night.

That does not mean just spending ten minutes a day reading your Bible, but it means to so fill your mind with the Bible that it occupies your thoughts all the day long. Then you will always be feeding on that which is positive, faith-inspiring, and upbuilding. Right thoughts are important, for what you think will decide how you live.

I have sometimes said that human personality is like an iceberg: seven-eights is below the surface. Very little of the iceberg actually shows above the surface in comparison with what is below the surface. It is also true with human personality.

What a person is thinking about is going to determine the course of his or her life. If you meditate on the right things and live the right kind of life, then you will get the results that God has promised: success and prosperity--God’s best.

Take a look at a passage, from the prophet Isaiah, that reiterates that the way we think affects our experience. God is speaking in this passage:

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
"As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
"As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth" (Isaiah 55:8-11).

Notice, God begins with thoughts, and He says that, by nature, our thoughts are not His thoughts. How, then, can we begin to think God’s thoughts? God gives the answer in the words that follow. God’s ways and God’s thoughts are on the heavenly plane, and our ways and our thoughts are on the earthly plane, far below God’s. But God’s Word brings His ways and His thoughts down from heaven into our lives and hearts, producing the results we need.

God goes on to say in the same passage, concerning His Word:

"It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
"You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.
"Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree, and instead of briers the myrtle will grow" (Isaiah 55:11-13).

This is the result of God’s Word coming down from heaven, entering our hearts, occupying our minds, and replacing our ways and our thoughts with God’s ways and God’s thoughts. God’s Word brings His ways and thoughts down to our hearts and lives. As our minds are filled with the Word of God, we begin to think the thoughts of God. Our whole thought life is completely changed.

The results are stated here in beautiful language: peace (you will be led forth with peace), joy (you will go out with joy), praise (even the things of nature will praise--"the trees of the field will clap their hands"), and fruitfulness (in place of the thornbush and the brier, the myrtle and the pine will grow).

That is what happens in our lives when God’s Word comes in and we receive it and begin to meditate on it. Our own ways and our own thoughts are like the thorns and the briers; they are unproductive and unhelpful. But when they are replaced by God’s Word, then instead of the thorn and the brier, we bring forth the pine and the myrtle.

I want to suggest that you should view the substitution of God’s ways and God’s thoughts for your own ways and thoughts as being the key to success. You should also cultivate the practice of meditating on God’s Word day and night. Meditating on God’s Word is learning to think God’s thoughts by receiving His Word into our hearts and minds.

Does anyone know any resources for learning Christian Biblical meditation on this site or elsewhere on the web?

[b]George Mueller on Morning Devotions[/b]

May 7.(1) It has recently pleased the Lord to teach me a truth, irrespective of human instrumentality, as far as I know, the benefit of which I have not lost, though now, while preparing the fifth edition for the press, more than fourteen years have since passed away. The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord.

How different, when the soul is refreshed and made happy early in the morning, from what it is when, without spiritual preparation, the service, the trials, and the temptations of the day come upon one!

- George Mueller

The first thing to be concerned about was not how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished.

For I might seek to set the truth before the unconverted, I might seek to benefit believers, I might seek to relieve the distressed, I might in other ways seek to behave myself as it becomes a child of God in this world; and yet, not being happy in the Lord, and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day by day, all this might not be attended to in a right spirit.

Before this time my practice had been, at least for ten years previously, as an habitual thing to give myself to prayer, after having dressed myself in the morning. Now, I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the word of God, and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, by means of the word of God, whilst meditating on it, my heart might be brought into experimental communion with the Lord.

I began therefore to meditate on the New Testament from the beginning, early in the morning.

The first thing I did, after having asked in a few words the Lord blessing upon his precious word, was, to begin to meditate on the word of God, searching as it were into every verse, to get blessing out of it; not for the sake of the public ministry of the word, not for the sake of preaching on what I had meditated upon, but for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul.

The result I have found to be almost invariably this, that after a very few minutes my soul has been led to confession, or to thanksgiving, or to intercession, or to supplication; so that, though I did not, as it were, give myself to prayer, but to meditation it turned almost immediately more or less into prayer. When thus I have been for a while making confession, or intercession, or supplication, or have given thanks, I go on to the next words or verse, turning all, as I go on, into prayer for myself or others, as the word may lead to it, but still continually keeping before me that food for my own soul is the object of my meditation.

The result of this is, that there is always a good deal of confession, thanksgiving, supplication, or intercession mingled with my meditation, and that my inner man almost invariably is even sensibly nourished and strengthened, and that by breakfast time, with rare exceptions, I am in a peaceful if not happy state of heart. Thus also the Lord is pleased to communicate unto me that which, either very soon after or at a later time, I have found to become food for other believers, though it was not for the sake of the public ministry of the word that I gave myself to meditation, but for the profit of my own inner man.

With this mode I have likewise combined the being out in the open air for an hour, an hour and a half, or two hours, before breakfast, walking about in the fields, and in the summer sitting for a little on the stiles, if I find it too much to walk all the time. I find it very beneficial to my health to walk thus for meditation before breakfast, and am now in the habit of using the time for that purpose, that when I get into the open air I generally take out a New Testament of good-sized type, which I carry with me for that purpose, besides my Bible; and I find that I can profitably spend my time in the open air, which formerly was not the case, for want of habit. I used to consider the time spent in walking a loss, but now I find it very profitable, not only to my body, but also to my soul. The walking out before breakfast is of course not necessarily connected with this matter, and every one has to judge according to his strength and other circumstances.

The difference, then, between my former practice and my present one is this: Formerly, when I rose, I began to pray as soon as possible, and generally spent all my time till breakfast in prayer, or almost all the time.

At all events I almost invariably began with prayer, except when I felt my soul to be more than usually barren, in which case I read the word of God for food, or for refreshment, or for a revival and renewal of my inner man, before I gave myself to prayer. But what was the result ? I often spent a quarter of an hour; or half an hour, or even an hour, on my knees, before being conscious to myself of having derived comfort, encouragement, humbling of soul, etc.; and often, after having suffered much from wandering of mind for the first ten minutes, or a quarter of an hour, or even half an hour; I only then began really to pray.

I scarcely ever suffer now in this way. For my heart being nourished by the truth, being brought into experimental fellowship with God, I speak to my Father and to my Friend (vile though I am, and unworthy of it) about the things that he has brought before me in his precious word.

It often now astonishes me that I did not sooner see this point. In no book did I ever read about it. No public ministry ever brought the matter before me. No private intercourse with a brother stirred me up to this matter. And yet now, since God has taught me this point, it is as plain to me as anything, that the first thing the child of God has to do morning by morning is, to obtain food for his inner man.

As the outward man is not fit for work for any length of time except we take food, and as this is one of the first things we do in the morning, so it should be with the inner man. We should take food for that, as every one must allow. Now what is the food for the inner man? Not prayer, but the word of God; and here again, not the simple reading of the word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what we read, pondering over it, and applying it to our hearts. When we pray, we speak to God.

Now, prayer, in order to be continued for any length of time in any other than a formal manner, requires, generally speaking a measure of strength or godly desire, and the season, therefore, when this exercise of the soul can be most effectually performed is after the inner man has been nourished by meditation on the word of God, where we find our Father speaking to us, to encourage us, to comfort us, to instruct us, to humble us, to reprove us. We may therefore profitably meditate, with God's blessing, though we are ever so weak spiritually; nay, the weaker we are, the more we need meditation for the strengthening of our inner man. There is thus far less to be feared from wandering of mind than if we give ourselves to prayer without having had previously time for meditation.

I dwell so particularly on this point because of the immense spiritual profit and refreshment I am conscious of having derived from it myself, and I affectionately and solemnly beseech all my follow believers to ponder this matter. By the blessing of God I ascribe to this mode the help and strength which I have had from God to pass in peace through deeper trials, in various ways, than I had ever had before; and after having now above fourteen years tried this way, I can most fully, in the fear of God, recommend it. In addition to this I generally read, after family prayer, larger portions of the word of God, when I still pursue my practice of reading regularly onward in the Holy Scriptures, sometimes in the New Testament and sometimes in the Old, and for more than twenty-six years I have proved the blessedness of it. I take, also either then or at other parts of the day, time more especially for prayer.

How different, when the soul is refreshed and made happy early in the morning, from what it is when, without spiritual preparation, the service, the trials, and the temptations of the day come upon one!