1 Thessalonians 5:23. “May God himself, the God of peace sanctify you through and through? May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ?”
You are a spirit being, you have a soul and you live in a physical body! People generally sense a great need to keep their physical bodies and minds fit. So they eat healthy foods, do physical and mental exercises. But we Christians apart from keeping our physical bodies fit sense a greater need for transformation Romans 12:2.
How do we do that? By ‘Renewing our Minds’ and ‘Training our Spirits’ through Meditation. 3 John 2. “Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.” ‘If you are sick, your soul is sick. If you are sad, your soul is sad. If you are poor your soul is poor. If your soul is poor your whole life will be poor. If you are not prospering your soul is not prospering’ – The mind which is a muscle needs to be exercised by meditation.
Dr. Peter Tan says: “I started spending about 6 to 7 hours daily confessing – meditating on God’s Word for a period of about one year – As a result, my entire life and ministry was completely transformed. Within a period of about six months, while I was preaching the Word of God, the gifts of the Spirit started operating. When I prayed for the sick or cast out demons, I found a new strength of power and life flowing out of me. I have never been the same since.”
Meditation is musing, pondering, thinking over a specific Word from God connected to a specific need for life-application. Meditation is a godly exercise that needs to be practiced in order to live a victorious and blessed life – both temporal and eternal. Confessing God’s Word is part of it.
To receive the benefits of meditation you must enter four gates. What are those? – Mind; Ear; Eye; Mouth. Let us combine two scriptures Proverbs 4:20-23 & Joshua 1:8 to understand these better.
Proverbs 4:20-23 “My son, attend to my words; Incline thine ear unto my sayings. Let them not depart from thine eyes; Keep them in the midst of thy heart for they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh. Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life,” – This scripture tells us more about the first three gates – mind, ear, and eye.
Mind Gate – ‘Attend to my words’ – Concentrated thinking
Ear Gate – ‘Incline thine ear’ – Hear what is said
Eye Gate – ‘Let them not …eyes’ – See, Imagine, Visualize
Reading the Word silently uses only the eye-gate and mind gate to take in God’s Word. Reading it aloud with understanding thoughtfully, uses all the four gates – mind; eye, mouth, and ear.
Joshua 1:8 – “This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth; but you shall meditate on it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it: for then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall have good success.” This scripture tells us more about the Third and Fourth Gate: Eye & Mouth.
“Meditate” in this verse comes from the Hebrew word “hagar” which means to Imagine [visualize]; Mutter, “Roar or shout”. ‘Eye-Gate’ – Imagine, visualize God’s Word as you study it. This means to ponder or think quietly on God’s Words in picture form.
As you keep these pictures in mind, the Word goes deep into your spirit and gets rooted there. It will become personal to you. ‘Mouth Gate’ – there are two ways of speaking, first softly and then aloud and both are essential – Mutter or speak God’s Word to yourself under your breath; Roar or shout God’s Word aloud! – And they are both to be done over and over again. As this is done, it will go beyond the written page, beyond your thinking and into your spirit. It will become God’s personal Word to you, and not just words written in the Bible.
Isaiah 31:4. “As a lion roars…over his prey unafraid of shepherds coming against him…so will the Lord of hosts…” – The word ‘roar’ used here is from the Hebrew word ‘hagar.’ The purpose of this kind of meditation is to drown every opposing thought in the mind, including thoughts the devil brings to prevent God’s Word entering your spirit.
When you shout God’s Word to yourself like this, you will make God’s Word enter your spirit and destroy all opposing thoughts, “…making you prosperous and successful.
Once again let us see what entering the four gates through meditation mean to you.
Mind Gate: Think, ponder muse God’s specific Word for specific life application.
Ear Gate: Hear what is said.
Eye Gate: Imagine, visualize God’s Word as you study it in picture-form
Mouth Gate: Mutter-speak God’s Word [under your breath]; Roar-shout God’s Word aloud, both repeatedly.
What happens when you do this? God’s Word enters gets en-rooted in your heart and that’s what your life will become. Many are unhappy with the life they are living. The secret is to get God’s Word rooted in your heart for every area of your life – spiritual growth; financial breakthrough; good health; security and so on…And that is the power of meditation.
If the Word remains only in the mind it can be unfruitful because you can still reason it out of you; the devil can also take it away from you because of your lack of understanding it. Meditation with understanding drives the Word into your spirit. It takes the Word from your mind into your spirit. When it gets into your spirit, it becomes real and personal to you, and then nothing can take it away from you.
What are some of the powerful results of Meditation?
It gives you Rhema – God’s Word speaking to you presently in your present situation. By meditating on the Logos, the written word you receive ‘Rhema’ which changes things; that changes life situations. The Logos has the ability to produce results and give you an inheritance. But you will not receive that inheritance until you release the ability in the Logos. How do you do that? – By meditating on the specific word given to you. It makes you the Word! – As you practice consistently meditating on God’s Word, you begin to think, talk, and act like God himself. Your life then reflects the Word. And the Word becomes flesh. When that happens, it is impossible sickness to stay in your body, since you have become like a sponge soaked in the Word. The Word has divine energy to affect everything in your life including your physical body. Proverbs 4:22
Eagle Vision School of Prophets International 