Guidelines for Personal Meditation

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Thursday, September 30. A believer's ability to live a life of holiness is directly connected to the time spent with the Lord. Stay tuned for some simple guidelines for personal meditation. If I could tell you this morning how to alleviate some of the pressure, a lot of the tension, a lot of the stress, to quieten your turbulent stormy insides, and to give you a little different perspective on life, I wonder if you'd be interested enough that you would listen, and then you'd be interested enough to get yourself a pencil and a piece of paper, the guidelines for your personal meditation.

Let me give you a little background of what's happening. The first verse of chapter 7 of 2 Samuel says, It came about when the king lived in the house the Lord had given him rest on every side from all of his enemies. So David, who had spent most of his life fighting, had now come to rest. The land had been conquered, and now he's living in this beautiful cedar house that he has provided for himself, and he begins to think about the fact that the ark of the covenant is still in a big tent. So he talks to Nathan, who is the prophet and also his friend, and also shares with him his concern. Then the scripture says that Nathan spoke with God about David, and God gave to Nathan a message to give to David. And beginning in verse 8 it says, Now therefore, thus you shall say to my servant David, Thus says the Lord of hosts. And then verses 8 down through verse 17, there are many times he says, I have done this and I will do this and so forth for David. And he starts off in verse 8 in a beautiful way saying, Tell him this, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be ruler over my people Israel.

And then he talks about all the things that he's done. So when Nathan goes to David and shares with him what God says, David's response is to be found in verse 18. Then David the king went in and sat before the Lord. And he said, Who am I, O Lord God?

And what is my house that thou hast brought me thus far? So here is David sitting before the Lord. Now he wasn't sitting in a chair like you and I would sit in, but he was kneeling on his knees and sitting back on his heels like you would normally do, and just sitting before the Lord and listening and talking to him. That is, David was meditating. Now David's meditation was nothing new to him because all of his life, since he'd known God Jehovah, he knew what it meant to meditate. For example, you read in the Psalms how many times he's listening and talking to the Father out in the fields, oftentimes running from Saul, running for his life, dodging javelins, fleeing for his life. But David knew how to meditate upon God.

It is the one activity that ought to be the number one priority in the life of every believer, but it is the one activity Satan will dog you to death to keep you from doing it. But you see, when you begin to examine and think about the rewards and the results of meditating, then you begin to realize that it can't be something secondary in your life but something primary. So what I'd like to do is I'd like, first of all, to make four recommendations to you about your own personal private meditation before the Lord. First recommendation is that you review the past. It may be what happened that day or that week or maybe a series of incidences that happened in your life because you see, one of the reasons that God wants us to review the past is if you will review the past that God has worked in your life, you will see patterns.

There's something about reviewing your past. Now listen, not majoring on the things that are not right about the past, but majoring on the way God has operated in your life in the past. Number two, reflecting upon God. It is one thing to review the past, but that must be followed by reflecting upon God.

Listen to what David said here. As he begins to talk to the Lord, he says, And yet this was insignificant in thine eyes, O Lord God, talking to him there. Then verse 20, And again, what more can David say to thee, for thou knowest thy servant, O Lord God? For the sake of thy word and according to thine own heart, thou hast done all this greatness to let thy servant know. Now when you begin to reflect upon God, there are three things that you and I ought to reflect upon. First of all, we ought to reflect upon the greatness of God.

Secondly, the grace of God and third of the goodness of God. Why the greatness of God? Listen, when you begin to reflect and meditate upon the greatness of God, his very name Jehovah, Yahweh, everlasting, Elohim, infinite in power, absolute in faithfulness.

And when you begin to meditate upon all the names for God, there are many of them. Here's what happens. This gigantic mountain, Kilimanjaro mountain of trouble and heartache before you, as you meditate upon the greatness of God, you know what happens? That thing grows smaller than an anthill, and you begin to say, What happened to the problem? Where's the burden?

Where's the obstacle? Because you see, in light of the presence of the greatness of God, there is nothing impossible in your life. So reflecting upon him is vital if your time of meditation is going to be profitable, because you see, why major on the difficulties? Majoring on difficulties, you know what happens?

When you major on, they get larger and larger and larger and grander and greater and more threatening all the time. As you major and you focus your attention upon God, they become smaller in the light of the omnipotence of a loving God, whom as you review your past has already proven you that he has accepted you the way you are. He loves you has forgiven you and is good and gracious and kind. The third thing is remembering God's promises. Listen to what he said in verse 28. Having sat before the Lord, meditating upon him, he says, And now O Lord God, thou art God, and thy words are truth, and thou hast promised this good thing to thy servant, that is, that his family and his name would be an everlasting name in the nation of Israel. So he's reminding God of his promises here. He's recalling, remembering the promises.

When you and I are kneeling before the Lord or sitting before him and just meditating and being quiet before him, it's good to review the past, great to reflect upon him. But likewise, to remember the promises of God. He says he's promised this peace, he's promised this provision, he's promised this protection.

And these promises belong to every single one of his children. You see what happens when we begin to meditate and we focus upon the problems, we become less and less secure, more and more threatened when we remember and reflect upon God and remember the promises that he's given to us in his word, what happens, all the things that threaten us begin to dissipate right in their presence. David understood that as he focused upon God, his fears, his frustrations, his anxieties, something began to happen to them. He knew what it meant to sit before the Lord and be quiet in his presence. But likewise, the Bible says that he made a request and so that's the fourth thing.

And that is, as you sit before the Lord and meditation before him, it isn't all just listening, though that's part of it. But there is a time to make a request in verse 29. He says, Now, therefore, may it please thee to bless the house of thy servant, that it may continue forever before thee.

Now think about that. What a tremendous request he made. Here is David sitting before the Lord. And he's not saying, Lord, would you just bless my family? He says, Would you bless thy servant? That it may that is that the house of thy servant may continue for ever before thee.

The house of David, King David, we're still talking about the nation of Israel still sees him as their great king. So God answered his prayer. So if you're going to have a time of meditation, that's going to be profitable for you, you can't rush in and a her and say, No, Lord, let me jot down one or two things here. A couple of prayer requests, two or three verses, right quick, a quick prayer and on the supper. That's not what God wants. He says he sat before the Lord.

And as he sat before them, he reviewed the past. And for you, it may be just that day, just reviewing how God's worked in your life just for that. You see, every time you review and see what God's done in the past, it ought to bolster your faith. Or you may have had a very difficult day. And you may be asking, Lord, why so many difficulties today?

It may be that he's trying to say something to you reviewing the past, reflecting upon has his greatness, his goodness and his grace towards you, remembering the promises he's made to you, and then making your request to him. The second thing I want you to notice here is this, and that is the requirements. What are the requirements for sitting before the Lord and meditating upon him? So I want to give you seven of them. And if you'll just jot these down, and I'm going to give you the scriptures and I hope you'll jot these down beside them.

The first one is this. When you think about meditating upon the Lord, the first requirement is a season of time. It may be five minutes, it may be 30 minutes, it may be an hour, however long. And listen, the time will be determined by your purpose. If you're deep in distress about something, it may be longer. If you just want to get quiet for a few moments to just sort of balance yourself out, level yourself out in a given situation, it may be just a matter of minutes. It depends upon your purpose for that period of meditation. But first of all, a season of time.

Remember what he says in Psalm 62 5, my soul wait there only upon God, for my expectation is from him and him alone. Time. Secondly, and that is stillness. The stillness does what? The stillness brings me to a point where I can concentrate. A little time set apart just to concentrate. You see, we said a few moments ago, reviewing the past, reflecting upon God, it's difficult for me to reflect upon him without lots of interference if I'm doing that, driving down the expressway or in the middle of a whole lot of other folks who are talking and making lots of noise. But just being still and you see for some people, that'll be a great challenge. You mean to sit still, lie still?

What do you mean? I'm talking about just what he said. He said, be still and know that I am God. You know why sometimes we miss God's most beautiful interventions in our life? Because we are so busy and so distracted by other things. We can't see him. We can't hear him. We can't feel him.

We're not sensitive to him. The stillness. The Bible says that Jesus, if you look at the pattern of his life, he understood what it meant to be still before his father. When is the last time you ever set aside a little time just to sit and meditate upon the Lord? Just focusing upon him and a lot of the things that you are facing in your life.

Now, you may have 25 things that pop up in your mind, but what you do in meditation is you bring each one of them against the background of God's greatness and goodness and grace towards you. And after a few moments, you'll say, well, thank you, Lord. You've taken care of that.

Next. You bring that up against his greatness and goodness and grace. Thank you, Father, for taking care of that. You see, you can't ever bring anything up against the greatness of God that will leave you worried, hurried in your spirit, fearful and anxious if you see it against the background of God.

The greatness, the omnipotence, the omniscience, the omnipresence, the holiness, the righteousness, the love and tender mercy he has for you. Stillness is the key. Number three, seclusion. And that is not only just being quiet, being still, but seclusion.

Mark chapter one, verse 35 says that early in the morning, it was the habit of the life of Jesus to get up early before day and go away alone and talk to the Father. You see, he felt the need for seclusion just to be away. Now, listen, everybody needs to get by themselves totally alone at times. That's wonderful for husbands and wives that love each other and to fellowship with each other, and that's the way it ought to be. But there are times when even they need to be alone and separate from each other, because if they're alone and separated, meditating before God, nothing will so drive them close into deeper oneness of intimacy with each other as meditating separately before God. You see, the reason sometimes God wants us alone, I don't mean your favorite prayer partner, not even there to be around. God wants your absolute, undivided, complete, unhindered attention focused just on him.

That's why whoever you are, the Lord Jesus Christ deserves your time, some of your time, all to himself. The next word is silence. And in Isaiah chapter 30, and here's surely one of those verses that you ought to mark down in your Bible somewhere, because it's such a precious verse about this very thing that we're talking about. He says in this particular passage, Isaiah chapter 30 and verse 15, he says, in quietness and in confidence is our strength. In quietness and in confidence is our strength. That is, when you and I are meditating upon the Lord, sometimes we will talk to him. As we said before, as we review the past, reflect upon him, remember his promises, then we'll make some requests. But oftentimes he wants us to sit before him in quietness. Listen, stillness, seclusion, and silence before God.

Now think about this. Why did he save you? He saved you to glorify him in the process of doing so. It is his desire to develop a relationship with you, which he began the moment you were saved. And so he's in the process of growing us up, building a relationship into our lives so that we will love and understand who he is as he loves and knows us perfectly and clearly living in us because he loves us to live his life out in the lives of other people because that's the way he shares his love through you and me. So he wants your undivided attention. The next word is self-control.

And that is the first time you say, well, I think I'm going to try that. You may be fidgety and you may feel foolish. You say, well, here I sit and there's nothing going on. Oh, yes, there is self-control. He says, Paul says in first Corinthians chapter nine, verse 27, he said he had to work at keeping his body under control. And when you begin to meditate, the biggest problem you may have is keeping your attention upon God. If you have that problem, turn to the Psalms and say, Lord, now I just have a hard time keeping my mind on, on what's going on here.

So I just want to get into Psalm here just to get my attention on you and what you'll be able to do in a few moments is to stop reading and, and, and begin to just think about him. Let me ask you something. Can you name me a bigger subject? Think about this. Can you name any subject of all the vocabulary that, that is encompassing the whole world with all the vocations and all the tribes and all the nationalities? Can you think of any word that has ever been in existence or ever will be that has as much depth and meaning behind it as the word God?

No. Well, then if that's true, don't you think that's enough to meditate on just who he is? Just how great he is and his goodness and his love and his mercy to you. But you may have to work at that a little bit.

The next word is sensitive. In Proverbs chapter eight and verse 34, a beautiful verse. Listen to what he says in this eighth chapter of Proverbs. He says, blessed is the man who listens to me. Blessed is the man who listens to me. Stillness, seclusion, silent, his body under control, listening to God. Blessed is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, watching at my doorpost. A man whose heart and life is focused upon God. God is the supreme obsession of his life.

God is the priority of his life and spending time being quiet before him is the number one priority because you see, a wise man knows that's the priority time of his life, whether he spends it that way or not. The next word is submission. That is a submissive spirit. Humble yourselves under the hand of the Lord God and he will exalt you. And he says in James chapter four verse seven, speaking of having a submissive spirit, we're to submit ourselves to God.

Now think about this. If you are rebellious in your heart and you are insisting on having your own way, you won't meditate because think about it. If you're in stillness and silence and seclusion and being quiet before God, you know what's happening? God has your attention. Of all the things that Jesus Christ wants above everything else in your life, you know what he wants? He just wants you loving him, focusing your attention upon him, believing him so that you may follow him in order that all he's prepared for you, you will be able to receive. Thank you for listening to Guidelines for Personal Meditation. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.