Meditation: How to Study the Bible in the Presence of God
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Meditation: How to Study the Bible in the Presence of God
I studied my Bible wrong for the first 10 years of my Christian life because the center of the studying process was Mark Virkler's brain, rather than revelation and insight from the Holy Spirit. I didn't do what King David did. He said his thoughts were troubling until he came into the sanctuary of the Lord, then he perceived (Ps. 73:17). Wow! He stepped beyond his own thinking, and came into God's presence, and then experienced perception, Holy Spirit revelation.
I didn't approach Scripture with a listening heart for the first 10 years of my Christian life because I didn't believe God was speaking anymore, so Bible study needed to be all about me and my efforts. Yuck!
Then I discovered that the verse in the King James Bible which says, "Study to show yourself approved..." (2 Tim 2. 15) was more correctly translated in the New King James Version as, "Be diligent to present yourself approved to God..." This was the only command in the Bible to study, and they dropped the word "study" and replaced it with diligence, which of course is an attitude of your heart, not a function of your brain!
Do you know how much I hate memorizing and living mistranslations of the Greek! A lot! So what is God's better idea? It is to let Him reveal truth to our hearts as He opens Scriptures to us. The disciples on the Emmaus road said, "were not our hearts burning within us as He opened Scriptures to to us (Lk. 24:32)." Got it! So this is my current approach to Scripture. Invite God, through His Holy Spirit, who is at my side to reveal insights from Scripture to my heart (Eph. 1:17,18), and for revelation to burn in my heart also, every time I open the Bible. And I do mean every time. Why not. He is always at my side (Acts 2:25). Why wouldn't I invite him to be part of the exploratory process?
If I invite the Holy Spirit into the process, it is called meditation, a word which shows up about 60 times in the Bible, and is translated in various ways. Meditation is a word which means I study the Bible in the presence of God, asking for revelation from the Holy Spirit, so that God gets to speak afresh to my heart every morning as I walk with Him in the cool of the day. Wow! Restoration to the Garden of Eden, to daily walks and talks with the God of the Universe, my Father, who loves to reveal Himself to me.
Tell me, isn't that much better than me studying the Bible on my own? I sure think so! So in this booklet we show you what the Bible says about meditation. What it is? How it is done? What can mess it up? How do I do it correctly? We detail the exact steps you can take so you live in a posture of meditation every day, all the time. We even illustrate the process with several examples.
There will never be another day where you come to the Bible and it will be a dull and dusty book. We guarantee, if you use these simple steps, which involve posturing your heart properly in the presence of the Lord, you will have verses leaping off the page every time you come to the Bible. And beyond that, the bible says we are to use this meditation process for all of life, so we will teach you how to receive revelation knowledge in each and every area of your life, regardless of what book you are exploring, or that problem you are researching, or what area of life you are looking at, for He is Lord of All and gives revelation to all and in all areas of life.
Even Einstein, a non-Christian received revelation from God which transformed the field of science, because he said, "I want to know God's thoughts, the rest are details." He hungered for divine revelation. He knew how to posture his heart to receive divine revelation and he transformed science, the field he was working in. You can bring revelation to the field God has called you to work in by bringing meditation to that field. Let us teach you how.