April 6, 2015 WORDS AND MEDITATION
Psalms 19:14: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my rock, and my Redeemer.”
What a great prayer! This is a wonderful prayer in that it gets to the root, or foundation of our life. The words that proceed from our mouth and the meditations of our hear reflect who we are. There is nothing higher or greater than having a desire to live our life in a way that is pleasing to the Father. We can say words that we really don’t mean, but generally speaking, our words come from our heart. We know that words are powerful-they have the power to build up or tear down. Proverbs 18:21 points out the power of words: “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” Because of the power of words, we must be on guard in regards to what we speak and like the psalmist; we should desire that our words be pleasing to God. The meditations of our heart refers to the things that we think about, or meditate on, much of the time-almost habitually. Our heart has a basic mode of thought, or perspective that is dominant. This basic heart condition or perspective is the crux of our lives. If our heart is right- if the “meditations of our heart” are pleasing to the Lord- then our life will be right.
Because the heart is what “drives” us, we need to understand how to have, or how to develop a heart that produces a life that is pleasing to our Father. At salvation, God gives us a new heart, a new spirit, and a new mind. However, we must choose to walk in the Spirit-follow the leading of the Spirit-if we are to live out of our new heart. It is possible to choose not to walk after the Spirit, and in such a case, we live according to our own dictates. The new heart we get at salvation can and should be nurtured so that we grow in the Lord. We nurture the heart by reading God’s word, by obeying what He says, by giving expression to what God is saying to us, by relating to other believers in the body of Christ (the Church), by prayer and by worship. As in the verse above, we can meditate on God and His word, and all of His attributes, and on how the word of God affects our life. It is possible to meditate on how to please ourselves, to become jealous or envious, become bitter, or whatever; but to do so produces bad fruit and it is not pleasing to the Father.
We must remember that God made us, and He has made provision for us to experience life to the fullest. The unregenerate human nature is at odds with the new nature that God gives to His followers. However, even in a culture that is at odds with God, we can, out of the meditations of our new heart, speak words that build up and words that are pleasing to our Father. Let us not be overcome by the world, but let us be overcomers who live life as God designed.
Ezekiel 36:26: “Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”
Proverbs 23:7: “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”
Blessings,
Buddy
Psalms 19:14: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my rock, and my Redeemer.”
What a great prayer! This is a wonderful prayer in that it gets to the root, or foundation of our life. The words that proceed from our mouth and the meditations of our hear reflect who we are. There is nothing higher or greater than having a desire to live our life in a way that is pleasing to the Father. We can say words that we really don’t mean, but generally speaking, our words come from our heart. We know that words are powerful-they have the power to build up or tear down. Proverbs 18:21 points out the power of words: “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” Because of the power of words, we must be on guard in regards to what we speak and like the psalmist; we should desire that our words be pleasing to God. The meditations of our heart refers to the things that we think about, or meditate on, much of the time-almost habitually. Our heart has a basic mode of thought, or perspective that is dominant. This basic heart condition or perspective is the crux of our lives. If our heart is right- if the “meditations of our heart” are pleasing to the Lord- then our life will be right.
Because the heart is what “drives” us, we need to understand how to have, or how to develop a heart that produces a life that is pleasing to our Father. At salvation, God gives us a new heart, a new spirit, and a new mind. However, we must choose to walk in the Spirit-follow the leading of the Spirit-if we are to live out of our new heart. It is possible to choose not to walk after the Spirit, and in such a case, we live according to our own dictates. The new heart we get at salvation can and should be nurtured so that we grow in the Lord. We nurture the heart by reading God’s word, by obeying what He says, by giving expression to what God is saying to us, by relating to other believers in the body of Christ (the Church), by prayer and by worship. As in the verse above, we can meditate on God and His word, and all of His attributes, and on how the word of God affects our life. It is possible to meditate on how to please ourselves, to become jealous or envious, become bitter, or whatever; but to do so produces bad fruit and it is not pleasing to the Father.
We must remember that God made us, and He has made provision for us to experience life to the fullest. The unregenerate human nature is at odds with the new nature that God gives to His followers. However, even in a culture that is at odds with God, we can, out of the meditations of our new heart, speak words that build up and words that are pleasing to our Father. Let us not be overcome by the world, but let us be overcomers who live life as God designed.
Ezekiel 36:26: “Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”
Proverbs 23:7: “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”
Blessings,
Buddy
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