Recently, I was expressing weariness to the Lord about a nagging health issue. His response caught me off guard and made me chuckle as He replied, “You should’ve had a V8!”
Immediately I was taken back to a commercial from the 80’s about a vegetable drink made from eight veggies. Instinctively I knew, however, that the Father’s humorous reply was corrective in nature.
Instead of veggies, He was saying I should be consuming Bible verses for my health. He was shining a light on some major adjustments needed in my practice of meditation!
For the past month I have been studying scriptures on meditation and receiving instructions from the Holy Spirit that are proving to be very powerful. He has shown me a way to meditate that I would like to begin sharing with you!
Below are some verses from the Bible giving revelation on the subject of meditation. Each verse gives us different clues on how to meditate effectively. As the Father once told me, “the whole truth is never in one verse!”
The first passage is in Proverbs 4:20-21. “My son GIVE ATTENTION TO MY WORDS. Incline your EAR to My sayings. Do not let them depart from your EYES; Keep them in the midst of your heart.”
God’s purpose for meditation is two-fold. Meditation is how we plant God’s Word deep within our heart (I view our heart as our subconscious mind). As we see in the above passage, the Word of God is allowed into our heart through the physical gates of our EYES and EARS.
The word meditation means to “deeply ponder and think intently and carefully.” It also means “to chew the cud.” Think of how slowly a cow eats… chewing, chewing, and more chewing!
Setting aside time each day to meditate and give deliberate attention to God’s words also works to bring our natural mind into agreement with the verses we are planting in our heart.
The Bible says our natural, conscious mind is carnal and hostile to God. (Romans 8:7) It filters our reality through what it experiences via our physical senses (what we can see, hear, feel, taste, and smell).
Our mind is considered hostile because God operates according to faith, and faith filters reality ONLY by what God says. The Bible says faith is the “evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).
When God gives us a promise, He is speaking of things we have not yet experienced in this natural realm. Our natural mind must be renewed daily to come into agreement and stay in agreement with what God has said until our promise manifests and proves to our senses the will of God.
The next clue comes from Mark 4:24 in the Amplified Classic Translation: “And He said to them, ‘Be careful what you are hearing. THE MEASURE OF THOUGHT AND STUDY YOU GIVE TO THE TRUTH YOU HEAR WILL BE THE MEASURE OF VIRTUE AND KNOWLEDGE THAT COMES BACK TO YOU—and more [besides] will be given to you who hear.‘”
This verse tells us we will be given understanding and revelation knowledge in proportion to the amount of time we meditate in God’s truths.
Revelation knowledge is a necessity for believers because according to 2 Peter 1:2 AMPC, God’s grace (divine favor) and peace, (perfect well-being, all necessary good, all spiritual prosperity, and freedom from fears, agitating passions and moral conflicts) will be multiplied to us in the full, personal, precise, and correct KNOWLEDGE of God and of Jesus our Lord.”
WOW! We see here in this verse how grace and peace is multiplied to us through meditation!
Joshua 1:8 is another verse full of instruction. “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.”
The word meditate also means “to mutter or articulate with our mouths.” Our EARS need to hear our own MOUTHS speaking what God says about us and our circumstances as we slowly and carefully rehearse the verses back to ourselves.
There seems to be a connection between our eyes, ears, and mouth. Effective meditation includes all three!
When we rehearse God’s promises during meditation, it can seem hollow and meaningless at first. Our natural mind will fight against what we are muttering until it becomes convinced we believe in our heart what is coming out of our mouths! It has been proven that our heart will come to believe our own voice quicker than hearing the voices of other people.
We must not allow ourselves to get discouraged during the meditation phase. It can feel like agony between the ears until our natural mind begins to agree with God’s thoughts!
For maximum result, we need a minimum of two “meals” a day of sowing God’s words into our heart through meditation. Joshua 1:8 mentions “day and night.” Though not a set rule, it would be a great practice to meditate in the morning before we get inundated with worldly news and social media. Another great time is before we go to bed. This way our heart can process God’s truth while we sleep!
Be sure to note in Joshua 1:8 the prosperity and good success assured us as we meditate God’s words to full persuasion of faith. If we persist, our muttering will eventually become a bold declaration of complete confidence in what we are speaking. This bold confession of faith yields great power as we return God’s words back to Him with full assurance! This is explained in Isaiah 55:11:
“And so shall My word be that goes forth out of my mouth. IT SHALL NOT RETURN TO ME VOID OF POWER, but it shall ACCOMPLISH the thing for which I sent it and SUCCEED in the thing for which it was sent.”
As we rehearse God’s Words to ourselves, here are three ways we can make our meditation more meaningful:
- Make it personal. As we are reading a verse slowly in our head, we can be repeating it out loud in first person. This will reinforce the truth that what Jesus did for ALL, He did for EACH ONE OF US individually.
- Make it in the present tense. God “calls things that be not as though they were.” Romans 4:17 tells how God gave childless Abram the new name of Abraham, meaning “father of many nations.” Repeating verses in the present tense reminds us that the promises of God fulfilled in Christ over 2000 years ago, are still being offered to us today!
- Make it with praise and thanksgiving! We can praise God and thank Him for the future fulfillment of our promises NOW because we understand all promises have already been accomplished in Christ and will eventually manifest in this natural realm!
We can meditate verses straight from a chapter in the Bible or do a search on the internet and rehearse verses dealing with our specific circumstance. Whatever our situation, God promises “to guide us into all triumph as we meditate His Word of grace. He assures us His Word is able to build us up and give us our inheritance!”(2Corinthians 2:14, Acts 20:32)
As an example, we could rehearse the above two verses by saying, “I praise You God and thank You that You are guiding me into all triumph. Your words of grace are building me up and giving me my inheritance!”
Meditation does not have to be time consuming. Below is a short thirteen minute instrumental by Jackie Baker. Anointed instrumental worship is a perfect companion for meditation. Using ear phones to listen while meditating and rehearsing verses helps us shut out the noise of the world and tune into our own voice.
I hope you will give this method of meditating a try. I truly believe you will find it worth the effort! Happy Meditating!