There are different kinds of "meditation": there is the popular Eastern kind, "yoga," induced by a trance or bodily contortions. This is a direct link to Hinduism, which professes to be a very "spiritual" religion. There is "Transcendental Meditation" which claims to be religiously "neutral." These forms of meditation are a search for a "higher form of consciousness," actually a search for "divinity within oneself." The idea is that God is everywhere--you just need to search him out. He is inside you, unrecognized; you make contact with him through these forms of "meditation."
Beware; the root idea is pantheism, and it leads one into Spiritualism, away from Christ.
The Bible teaches the true, healthy experience of meditation: Isaac, a faithful, God-reverencing young man "went out to meditate in the field at the eventide" (Gen. 24:63). Precious experience! And we know what he was meditating about--yearning to meet his one and only, Rebecca. David would lie awake at night, he says, "to remember [the Lord] upon my bed, and meditate on [Him] in the night watches" (Psalm 63:6). He begs the Lord to give him the gift of the Holy Spirit so that "the meditation of my heart [may be] acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my Redeemer" (19:14).
Does this take time? Of course! Does it require mental application? Disciplining the thoughts? Self-control, so you don't go to sleep all the time? Yes! You discipline your thoughts, "casting down imaginations, ... and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ" (2 Cor. 10:5). You base your meditation on biblical truth; you exercise control of your mind, and thus you welcome the Holy Spirit into your time of spiritual fellowship with God--who is your personal Heavenly Father and Savior FROM sin. Cherish such meditation!
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: November 2, 2004.Copyright © 2011 by Robert J. Wieland.
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