It takes effort to meditate on God’s word. Let’s get started!
You’ve heard the saying, “Life comes at you fast”? Wow. So often it does. That saying is definitely true. So much information, so much activity we try to pack into our lives, that we barely have time to stop, take it all in, digest what we have been through, what we’ve read or what we’ve experienced.
You know, I was recently looking at an article where the author was talking about - he had taken a five-day retreat, a course that he paid good money for, on the art of meditation. And after five days, he said for the first time in his life, he had learned how to be what he called “mindful”. In other words, to kind of pay attention to himself, his inner thoughts, and to just slow down. This was a high-powered, fast-charging type of an executive. Well, most of us don’t have the opportunity to take a five-day refresher course or a retreat on meditation, but there is something that we do need to learn about that.
We are at key number 13 in our series on how to understand the Bible. Key 13 in this series is to review what you read and study the Bible and meditate on it. Review, look it over, take a second reading, and meditate. And meditation is not something that you have to kind of get into a special mood or position or setting for. It just requires that we kind of slow down and we take the time to think through what we have been reading and especially when it comes to the Bible, we have to set aside time. We have to turn off the television. We have to shut down the computer. We have to find a quiet spot, yes, and make that time, but think about what we’ve read. Maybe even write it down - we talked earlier about taking notes on what you read .
But without this particular key, so much of what we study and take in about the Bible may just get lost and kind of shoved out with all the other busyness of life. So take time to think about what you’ve been learning. And if something does seem hard to understand, well, again, go back over some of the other points that we have talked about in this series . Seek guidance. Seek out a minister, someone who is knowledgeable about the Bible. Read that particular passage in a different translation. Let the Bible interpret itself. And certainly pray to God for understanding and insight into a passage, into a concept that might be difficult for you to wrap your mind around.
But this idea of reviewing and meditating is embedded within the Scriptures itself, to teach us about this. I’d like to take the time to look at a couple of sections of Scripture that really do talk about this. The first one is from Psalms 119:97-98. And it says, “O how love I Thy law! It is my meditation all the day.” The author here is talking about thinking about the law of God, how it is applied to one’s personal life, how it would make a world of difference if only a handful of people in the world would live by the law of God and how much good could flow from that. It goes on, “You, through Your commandments, make me wiser than my enemies; For they are ever with me.” They’re ever with us because we think about them and we reflect upon them and they become something that is written then upon our heart.
Second verse is in Psalms 139:17-18. “How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand; When I awake, I am still with You.” Precious are the thoughts of God.
Take the time to meditate. Slow down. Set aside a quiet space and a quiet time. You don’t have to take a five-day course and go through some expensive or tedious system to learn this art. Let God talk to you in that way. Take the time to review and meditate - it’ll open up an understanding of the Scriptures. And something that will come about then is it will stay with you for a much, much longer period of time.
To really understand the Bible you have to understand a four letter word.
Obey. We’re at point number 13 in our series that we’ve been working our way through, in keys to understanding the Bible, and we’re talking today about obeying God’s word and proving it right as a key to understanding the word of God. And it all comes up and is summed up by this one word, “obey”. You want to truly understand God’s word? Ultimately, you have to move beyond study, you have to move beyond just reading it on a daily basis - all of which is important - you have to move beyond the meditating and the thinking about it, or the taking notes about it, or searching into other commentaries and Bible dictionaries and other helps to understand certain parts of the Bible - ultimately, if we’re really going to understand God’s word, we have got to obey it to prove it right, and then reach a level of understanding that no other method will take us to. We have to obey God’s word.
This is told to us in many different ways. In 1 John chapter 1 - 1 John, actually 3:22, it says, “Whatever we ask we receive, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight” (1 John 3:22). We keep His commandments. We obey God’s commandments. Through that, we learn and we receive things from God. And one of the things we can receive is a better understanding of His word.
Again, obeying God’s word takes a major step, whether it’s the Sabbath, whether it’s tithing, and proving that God’s word brings a better way of life, brings peace of mind, brings blessings. When we do that, we’re proving God’s word.
I just recently returned from a study tour of Italy with another group of Bible students, and the theme of the whole tour was to go through the Roman world and understand the context of the Bible in which it was written, as a means of understanding it. It was all very fascinating, added a lot of new insights into my understanding of the Scriptures, but one day I was thinking about it, and I realized, you know, context of the Bible, to study the Bible, really means to put yourself truly into it, and the best way that we can do it today is by obeying the Scripture - by living it the way Jesus lived it, the way the apostle Paul taught it and expected the church in the first century to live it. We don’t live in the Roman world today. We don’t live in the first century conditions. We live in the 21st century. The context for us today is our world and our time. But if you really want to study the Bible in context, live it. Obey it. Obey God’s word. That’s the ultimate proof to truly come to a level of understanding of God’s word that no other form or fashion or study can take us.
Here is a vital key to holding onto the Biblical truths you learn.
Have you ever had something that you held onto so tightly, because it was so precious to you, you didn’t want to let it go, you didn’t want to lose it? Maybe as a child you had a favorite stuffed animal or a doll or something that was so precious to you. Maybe it was a coin that somebody gave to you, a fake gold coin, doubloon, or a Roman drachma or something like that. But we have things like that that we just want to hold on to, and we didn’t want to let it go because it was so valuable, so precious, the most important thing in the world to us. That’s the way we have to approach the truths of the word of God. We have to hold on so tight because they are the precious truths of eternal life, we don’t want to let them go. We want to hold fast.
We’ve come to the fifteenth key in understanding the Bible - been going through a very long series here, and this is the last one that we’ve come to - and it can help sum up all of the others that we have talked about and how we come to understand the word of God, the keys to opening and unlocking the truths of eternal life that the Bible has for us, the pearls of wisdom - the very pearls of the kingdom of God.
Holding fast, holding onto something is critically essential, and that’s what we have to do, once we prove it, once we study into it, once we begin to live it, and once we begin to understand exactly what it does to our lives, we’ve got to hold on firm and fast. That’s the way we have to look at the truths of the Bible.
In 1 Thessalonians 5:21 - it’s a very well-known verse - it says, “Test all things. Hold fast what is good.” Prove all things, test all things, and hold fast, hold on to what is good. Throw off what is untrue. Throw off what doesn’t work. Throw off anything that hurts or harms, and keep what is true. That’s what Paul is saying there.
You know, the more we study, and to whatever point you are in your journey through the word of God and how it affects your life and your understanding of it, recognize that as you continue to live it, you continue to study the word of God, as God draws you through stages of life through His Holy Spirit. You will deepen in understanding, deepen in appreciation for the Bible. You may, depending on where you are on the continuum of truths right now, you might even still yet have certain things to learn and to come to understand about the Bible that will cause you to have to unlearn the error that has been there. And as you replace that error with the truth of God, again, you prove it, you test it, you hold fast to what it is.
Let me give you one prayer to kind of wrap up and to conclude this series that we’ve been going through. It’s one that has stood me well for many different reasons through my years of studying the Bible, teaching it, helping people to come to understand that. It’s in Philippians 1:6. It’s a promise. Philippians 1:6. It’s a promise from God, and it can be one that He makes to you and that, when you claim it, He will fulfill. Here’s what Paul writes: “Being confidant of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” We can have confidence that what God has begun in us, through His word, to lead us in understanding, conviction, and an action to have as a part of our life, God can continue in that. Claim that promise, that as He’s begun a good work in you, He will complete that work. And as we hold fast, as we hold true to the word of God and the understanding God has given to us, He will complete that work that He begins in us, even unto the day of Jesus Christ.
I hope that this has been a profitable series. You might want to go back through several of the others that we have covered in this series, but I hope it has inspired you to deepen and appreciate your understanding of the very valuable word of the living God.