How to Improve Your Scriptural Meditation
1. COMMIT yourself to the goals of scripture. Stick with certain key verses that will guide, assure, convict, and provide insights into important decisions that you will need to make. When I learned how to commit my way to the Lord, my thoughts starting becoming agreeable with the Lord’s thoughts. (Psa. 37:4,5)
2. TRADE your own perceptions, thoughts, doubts, and fears for the promises of scripture. Rom. 8:6-8 says, ``The mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.’’ Nine years ago I had to make a choice between marrying and Pastoring in Los Angeles or coming to Nigeria as a seminary lecturer. That trade off, at the time seemed hard, but from an early age I learned the secret of trading something good for the best.
3. LOOK for practical ways that you can apply the holiness, righteousness, love, power, and purposes of Christ in your life. When a certain man started to look for the positive contributions he could make rather than the adversities that plagued him, he became a successful man. Although he drifted back into old habits often, he gradually established patterns of thinking, feeling, and doing that brought great joy to him and his family. His life is now a model to us all!
4. EVALUATE your life according to the beatitudes given by Jesus in Matt. 5:3-12: ``Blessed are the humble, pure in heart, hungry for righteousness, merciful, peacemakers, those persecuted for righteousness, those who mourn over the sins of the world, the gentle, and those who know their spiritual poverty without Christ.’’ Ask yourself where you need to conform more to these ideals. When I contrast these with their opposites: pride, deceitfulness, apathy, cruelty, anger, fearfulness, and self-righteousness, I realize where I have fallen short of God’s standards!
5. SHARE the insights given by God from His word to others, both Christians and non-Christians. By giving others the benefits of God’s illumination, inspirations, and instructions to my own perceptions are broadened and deepened. Paul advised Timothy in 2 Tim. 4:1,2, ``Preach the word; when it is convenient and when not convenient; correct, exhort, rebuke with complete patience and teaching.’’ Sharing the scripture always gives you greater hunger to find more insights the next time you open the Bible.
6. WRITE down your observations, interpretations, meditations, correlations, and applications of the scripture. When you record your insights it clarifies, enriches, and deepens your appreciations. Every morning I record these aspects of my Bible reading in a notebook. It allows me to keep a journal of the ways in which God speaks to me every day from His word. By crystallizing my thoughts through writing, I can teach, communicate, and clarify to others the benefits of scripture.
7. EXPOSE the deeds of darkness with the scripture. The light of scripture can correct, discern, examine, and point out the harmful ways of thinking, acting, and reacting to people and circumstances. One man began quoting scripture before he went to bed. Soon, he noticed that his fearful visions, dreams, and nightmares were replaced with thoughts of peace, joy, and fulfillment. This changed his entire outlook on life. He was able to rest comfortably and soon enjoyed many promotions and new responsibilities in his civil service job.
8. POSE QUESTIONS of scripture. When you go to the Bible with sincere questions you will be rewarded with rich answers. For example, I try to ask the scripture for any 1). Guidepoints for my teaching? 2). Errors to avoid in my conversations? 3). Sins to forsake in my thinking? 4). Commands to obey? 5). Attitudes to eliminate? 6). Attitudes to develop? 7). Examples to follow? 8). Things to be thankful for? 10). Promises to assure for success? 11). Implications or inferences for writing? 12). Definitions of key words? 13). Motives for certain actions? 14). Attributes of God seen?
9. DISCUSS with others the meanings, implications, and the applications of scripture. Its amazing how much I learn from my students about the scripture when they share their experiential points of view of the Bible. The diversity of others perceptions will enrich your own. Ask others what they think of certain verses and you will be amazed at all the new insights that you gain.
10. LET GOD TALK to you personally through the scriptures. Read certain passages aloud emphasizing different words. This will bring to life the ministry of the Holy Spirit who speaks to you through scripture. For example, from I Cor. 13:4-7 you might read while emphasizing certain words, ``Love is PATIENT and is KIND, love is not JEALOUS, it is not out for its own DISPLAY, it is not CONCEITED OR UNMANNERLY, it is not SELF-SEEKING nor IRRITABLE, nor does it take into account of a wrong suffered, it takes no pleasure in injustice, but sides happily with the TRUTH.’’
11. VISUALIZE yourself thinking, feeling, and behaving as scripture suggests. Imagine yourself as a mature Christian leader bringing love, joy, and success to others. Picture yourself as one who is respected, admired, and appreciated by others. I try to do these things by projecting how the scriptural guidelines will affect my thoughts, feelings, and actions during the day. Many times I speak to myself on how I anticipate how certain situations, conflicts, or conversations can best be carried out applying scripture. Half of the battle is visualizing, by faith, how God’s will ideally be completed.
12. PUT ON Christ like qualities and PUT OFF the behaviors of darkness. Conscientiously clothe your mind with the characteristics of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control while mentally shunning any temptations to feel jealousy, anger, envy, doubt, lust, greed, or covetousness. I find that by being around others who have made a positive habit of ``putting on good and putting off the bad’’, it enables me to follow their patterns. Remember, ``Bad company corrupts good morals.’’
13. ASK, SEEK & KNOCK as often as you like on God’s door to obtain your blessings (Matt. 7:7). Many of us do not have because we do not ask and when we ask we ask with wrong motives so we may spend it on our pleasures. (James 4:4) One man tried for 11 straight years to earn three credits in his G.C.E.(Secondary school) exams. Refusing to give up, he persisted until he got enough credits to gain admission into a certain Seminary. Today he is a successful Pastor of a church in Borno State. Refuse to quit, grow weary, or get discouraged. God is eager to give us the riches of His kingdom if we will only ask, seek, and knock persistently!
14. LAUGH AND SING with others about the goodness of the Lord. This will help take away the maladies of self-centeredness, introspection, and needless worry. Man’s chief aim in life is to give glory to God and to enjoy Him forever, as stated in the Westminster Confession. Proverbs says, ``A joyful heart is good medicine but a broken spirit dries up the bones.’’ When people get old their bones start to become brittle. Often elderly people fall and break their hips, legs, or arms because their brittle bones cannot take stress. Laughter provides the cushions that we all need to withstand the hardships of life. When we can learn to laugh and sing in the midst of our problems we are able to take a disappointment without suffering permanent damage. Laughter and song heals, revives, cheers, and lubricates our spirit!
15. NEGOTIATE with God’s word about how you can begin to close the gaps between the ideals of scripture and your own realities. When I came to Nigeria nine years ago, I reasoned with God on Jn.14:12 which say, ``He who believes in me the works that I do shall he do also and greater works than these shall he do because I go to the Father.’’ I figured that the verse told me that my greatest limit to success would be believing that it was possible to succeed. Even though you may not understand the roles God may want you to play as a student, teacher, father, or mother you should be willing to say to God, ``I am willing to try to implement everything I have learned for your kingdom’s qualitative and quantitative growth. If for some reason certain things do not work out then I will try something else.’’
That small seed of confidence will blossom into groves of fruitful results. Begin to negotiate how you can implement the truths of God in your life. Then look forward to your fruits of righteousness.
16. OVERLOOK & OVERCOME the problems and obstacles in your path through the promises in scripture. Many of us fix our emotional and mental energy on the obstacles of life. You will hear people complain that they do not have enough money. Perhaps they insist that they do not know how to accomplish certain tasks. They need to begin with small steps. Help them start to work on several smaller projects. Together attend continuing education classes at a local school, attend small group Bible studies on improving your marriage, read some ``How To’’ books, or ask someone’s advise on how to overcome and overlook difficulties. The biggest waste of time is the time we waste in getting started in solving our problems. Do not wait, hesitate, or procrastinate. Faith is honored by God when it is translated into work! No purposeful labor is in vain.
17. ORGANIZE your thoughts from the scripture. Try to specify the most important daily lessons that you learn by organizing them into a few key principles. Write some of these gems of truth down on a small piece of paper. Paste the paper above your bed, on the back of a door, or on the dashboard of your car. This will help you to remember, integrate, apply and discuss these important principles. Many wonderful lessons from scripture fail to find their way into actions because of a lack of organized thoughts. Proverbs says, ``Any enterprise is built by wise planning.’’ (Prov. 24:3,4) Failing to plan is planning to fail.
18. SHARE the wonderful truths of scripture with others. The more you teach, preach, witness, and share the lessons you have learned from scripture with others the hungrier you will become to devour more scripture. The Bible is our spiritual food. The more we use it the more it develops spiritual character. However, many Christians hear the word of God, but because of lack of use miss out on the rich benefits of making it a part of them.
When people are farming all day their appetites increase allowing them to eat great portions of food. However, those who eat more than they use grow fat, lazy, and suffer from hypertension. Remember what we don’t use, we will lose. Do not be ashamed of ``the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God for salvation.’’ (Rom. 1:16)
19. PRIORITIZE sections of scripture that are most important. This will enable you to clarify the most significant values, objectives, and answers to life’s problems. Some people fail to prioritize scripture. These folks are majoring on the minors of life. Learn to focus your attention on the key aspects of each scripture you read. For example, How is Christ seen in that passage? What principles are taught? How can those truths link with the major doctrines of the Bible? What errors to avoid is the author suggesting? What key issues are being addressed? What are the biggest hindrances to applying this truth to our lives?
Prioritization allow you to construct a hierarchy of principles that will guide you in all decision making. Many people make decisions on the basis of emergencies, crises, or sudden disasters that occur. They suffer needlessly. If people were able to prioritize scripture they would also find that their lives will take on priorities suited to God’s plan for our lives. ``God’s will done in God’s way will not lack God’s support.’’ (Hudson Taylor)
20. WORK at understanding the deeper truths of scripture. Just as a miner works at digging for precious stones so a Christian should learn to dig for deeper spiritual truths. This may mean that you need to buy study helps like Bible dictionaries, concordances, commentaries, word study guides etc. You may have to spend hours simply digging into all the connotative and denotative meanings of certain words, phrases, or character references. Jesus once told the Pharisees in John 5:39, ``You error because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God.’’ Let us avoid, at all costs, their mistakes.
21. YIELD your rights to God. The more we obey the scriptures the more God reveals to us. If we stubbornly hold on to our rights of pride, selfishness, power, positions, education, family status, or tribal-cultural values we will never know the depth of the riches of God’s truth and peace. Jesus said, ``If anyone is willing to come after me let him deny himself and follow me.’’ (Lk. 9:23) Jesus meant that people have to be willing to give up aspirations for greatness, self-aggrandizement, popularity, power, and comforts. The yielded Pastors that I have met through the years are some of the most spiritually enriched people on earth. They have learned to surrender their rights to being with their families and God has replaced them with close Christian friends. They have given up the rights to live and work in their own cultures, but God has given them greater riches in cross-cultural ministries. They have foregone the pleasures of this world with the confidence that Jesus provides substitutes with internal and eternal satisfactions. Be assured that whatever we yield to God, He will return in greater qualitative and quantitative measure.
