Bill Johnson - True Biblical Meditation
That’s biblical meditation. Somehow, the heart, the mind, and the emotions—everything about us—becomes trained in the mind of Christ. The missing art of biblical meditation must be restored. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. How many of you have ever become so anxious over something that it kept you up at night, with that thing going through your mind all night long, and you couldn’t sleep? Put your hands up. All right, all right, so we know that we know how to meditate. Now we just have to change the subject matter. This passage of Scripture gives us clear guidance; how many times does He have to say it? Be strong, be courageous, be very strong, be very courageous.
Did you hear me? I said be strong, be courageous; don’t be dismayed, don’t be fearful, don’t become anxious. He gives all these commands, but not one time does He tell you how. He says, «Be strong, very courageous,» and then He states, «You will make your own way prosperous; you will make your own way successful.» Then He provides one little sliver, an extremely profound sliver of advice—not advice, but a command, a sliver of instruction that makes everything else in the verse possible. He says, «But you shall meditate on this word day and night.»
I think biblical meditation is probably the most neglected area of Christian discipline in the body of Christ in our country. There’s Western meditation, which is intellectual; there’s Eastern meditation, which aims to empty your mind; and there’s biblical meditation, which is unlike either of those. I want to read to you the definition of this word meditation. By the way, if you’re taking notes, I don’t know if we’ll get to it or not, but the first Psalm, Psalms number one, is a parallel passage to Joshua chapter one. It runs very similar themes.
Let me read this definition to you: it means to reflect, to moan, to mutter, to ponder, to make a quiet sound, such as a sigh, to meditate or contemplate something as one repeats the words. It represents something quite unlike the English meditation, which may be a mental exercise only. In Hebrew thought, to meditate upon the Scriptures is to quietly repeat them in a soft, droning sound while utterly abandoning outside distractions. From this tradition comes a specialized type of Jewish prayer called davening, which involves reciting texts, praying intense prayers, or getting lost in communion with God while bowing or rocking back and forth.
If you’ve seen people at the Wailing Wall, this rocking is actually a physical response to biblical meditation; it is repeating a matter, which is what you do in biblical meditation. This dynamic form of prayer goes back to David’s time, thus called davening. This is from Dick Mills in his word study book. Often, what we do is read Scripture, say «Amen» to what we read, and feel encouraged, but the Lord has actually given us instruction that, in many ways, determines the measure of our success, our impact, our prosperity.
And again, I don’t mind discussing money in this context, but it’s not my focus today at all. It’s not about boats, planes, and mansions; it’s about being as wealthy on the inside as Bill Gates is on the outside. There’s that kind of abundance here that I have to spend my life trying to figure out how to give all this encouragement away because I have so much. It is that place of prosperity. Is it possible that God would bless you more on the inside than someone like Bill Gates is blessed on the outside? Yes, it’s possible, because we tap into an eternal, unlimited Kingdom. It is the design of the Lord that we actually enter into places of personal victory that are equal to the kinds of victories that we see by great corporations, etc.
Back to the point: the Lord would cause you and me to be a people who have triumphed in our personal journey with Him to such an extent that there are conquests in the same way that there are conquests in military, business, and other parts of life, such as sports, etc. Instead, He’s saying He’s directly tying this one tiny little sliver of insight and command to meditate. He even states, «This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth.» That’s actually one of the expressions of meditation: the fact that there is this repeating. I’m not saying you have to rock, but I want to illustrate that there is this repeating. God spoke a word to me. I remember times I’ve been in a really difficult financial place and I needed a miracle breakthrough. I found this verse in Psalms 127. In fact, for months now, I’ve been reading Psalms 127 and 128 every day, because they are family psalms, and I love to pray them over my household.
So let’s go back to this verse: «He provides for His beloved even while he sleeps.» I will take this verse in a time of great personal need and I will just pray and say, «God, You said in Your word that You provide for me even while I’m sleeping. God, I celebrate the fact that I do work hard for You and I give that to You, but Your work for me is far greater than my work for myself. You have unlimited resources. You provide for me out of the riches of Your glory, which is vast and uncontainable in any vessel. God, I thank You that Your abundance pours toward me. You’ve actually assigned a measure of breakthrough into my life and my family and my family line. God, I confess, I declare, I sing before You: You provide for me even while I sleep.»
What is there? There’s just this repeated prayer. It’s not just this ritual or religious routine; what’s happening is my interaction with what God has said is now becoming part of the fabric of my being. Lance Wallnau would say it’s become cellular in us. It becomes something that is so much a part of us that it is woven into our actual personality, and it affects how we think; it affects how we live. It’s not a two-minute reciting of a verse; it’s a lifetime of engagement with that which God has said. Now the Scriptures tell us man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. God is saying you’re alive because I talk; you’re alive because I speak.
Everything about you thrives because I have spoken. I have deposited through My word; I have transferred from My world to yours through a decree. When we take that word seriously and prayerfully consider it, I’ve done this: put it on a three by five card, stick it on the dashboard of my car. If I have a distance to drive, I just have that to look at, to refresh my mind. I maybe can quote it without the card, but I look at it anyway because I want everything about me: I speak it because I want my ears to hear it. I see it with my eyes because I want my eyes to see it. I speak with my mouth because I want to participate with God in saying what He is saying. Jesus only said what His Father says. If you want to learn to say what the Father is saying, then start saying what He has said.