We are going to look at meditation exercises. In my life after building my spirit in tongues, meditation has been the key factor in which i can engage in intimacy with God.
Tongues makes possible, helps, assists that flow. But meditating helps us tune into the thoughts of God, so we can hear his voice.
Meditating also enables us to visualize the word of God. And then meditating enables us to step into the word of God through the doorway that has opened up, by are visualizing it.
I encourage you to journal your meditation engagements, So that you can review them and revisit them. Often there is much more revelation that come second third time around.
Sometimes the awe factor of our initial encounters often diminishes over time. But then we can focus on some of the symbolism and the details. I encourage you to develop a testimony so you can reengage those experiences.
When we meditate in the word I would encourage you to start within the exercises just praying in tongues for a few minutes, consciously tune out the things around you. That means casting all your burdens onto him. Cast your thoughts onto him.
Just think about Jesus start to think about him, picture him is a good place to start. And then we can come into that place of rest and relaxation.
When you pray in tongues and you begin to think about the word of God, read the word of God in meditation. I would encourage you to think about each word, don’t study it, analyze it, but let the thoughts of God, as you speak each word out individually in a verse or passage, let the thoughts of God dance across your mind bringing living revelation as the Holy Spirit unveils the truth and the reality of the personal encounter that we experience in that living active word.
It needs to be a relationship that we develop so that it becomes living and active. What we’re looking to do is to learn to hear the voices of God, as he speaks to us father-son Jesus Holy Spirit as they speak to us to recognize their voice as a flow of spontaneous thoughts that comes into our mind.
There is a couple of exercises that I demonstrate that in Psalm 46:10 be still and know that I’m God. And Lord is my Shepherd Psalm 23 examples of meditating in the word by muttering over to ourselves and listening to the flow that comes from God as revelation comes. And then we can begin to focus as we listen and engage in God’s thoughts and engage in the flow of those thoughts as they come.
for some people background music soaking type music helps, it blocks out background noise and distractions and creates an atmosphere of the Spirit around us and I put a link there to an album I use which is by friend of mine Fiona eaten and you can download that if you want. You might have your own favorite soaking music I would encourage you instrumental music rather than words.
Just so that it can create the atmosphere in our spirit and then as you engage in these pictures particularly in the Psalm 23 exercise begin to close your eyes and then begin to picture. use the image that are in the PowerPoint’s as a reference if you need to open up that visual picture of it and then as you pictures psalm 23 you can picture yourself in the green pastures the gently flowing river and be part of it and then you can enter into that word that you been thinking about meditating around by talking to him in your mind and asking him a question and then begin to listen to his reply. Just as you listen to the Holy Spirit bringing revelation about the word that you are meditating on you can also enter that word and listen for his response as you talk to him. So you are literally entering into a two-way conversation- with the thoughts of God as spontaneous thoughts into your mind as he speaks to you. The revelation through repetition becomes encoded into our spirit, stored in our hearts and then we can draw on this revelation for our personal lives and experience it daily. now I encourage you to choose your own verses and practice this a lot. Meditate developing hearing God’s inner voice in your mind as a flow of thoughts and impressions feelings words. There is a list here of potential versus that you can use. The whole Bible is filled with pictorial images of encounters with God. So choose something that is relevant to you that the Holy Spirit might want to use with you. what I would suggest in some of the ones that are important to me Psalm 23 psalm 46;10 Psalm 24 proverbs 8 John 4;13 John 7;37- 38 Matthew 11:28, 29 revelation 3:20 revelation 4:1-2 Hebrews 4:16 hebrews 4: 12 Revelation 22:1-2 Zechariah 3:1-7 Psalm 139 their some potential ones you might want to use and I would encourage you in this whole process to journal. journaling is a very biblical process.
and when you journal don’t let doubt hinder you don’t try and analyze what you’re writing. just let it flow and then go back over it later. God is present with you. God is speaking to you as one of his children. You can hear his voice. Come from a place of rest don’t strive or struggle for it.
Rest, relax and then enter into a free flow as he speaks to you. Now when you journal you can sit back comfortably take out your pen and paper and begin to smile. Begin to turn your attention towards God in praise worship begin to see his face. After you write your question out to him just become still begin to fix your eyes and think about him and just allow his thoughts to come in response to your question. Don’t doubt it just write it down simply and then later, when you read your journalling you are going to be blessed to discover that you have been talking with God.
Knowing God through the Bible is the vital foundation to hearing his voice in your heart. And a solid commitment to knowing and obeying the word of God will lead us into more deeper revelation. it is important for our spiritual growth that we have people that we can talk to and share what we receive when we journal. so that we don’t make decisions just based on something we hear but we are able to submit those things to others who we trust so that we can have a relationship. so that major directional things can come out of journaling can just be confirmed before you act on them.
now another part of meditation really is activating our imagination, the opening of the eyes of our heart so we can begin to look, begin to see and visualize. We can do this initially by thinking about an object or place a person just begin to picture it. So first think then picture. You can use a natural object or picture or image lots of them I use in these illustrations and exercises to just help open up the eyes of our heart. picture on something . You can use the word of God. You can use a previous experience that you had as a doorway using images that have spiritual significance to you. Again when you practice this, initially just begin to pray in tongues and cast all your burdens on God again. Allow him to bring you into that place of rest. Remember again the significance of our spiritual language. Use tongues in all the exercises either out loud or in your mind or in your spirit whichever is easier for you so that we can build our spirit and connect with what we are doing. So in this whole thing about visualizing, start using some images to think about things that later in this series they will have a more significant engagement in. so I am just giving you some things now which will help you in the future. So think about a door, then begin to picture a door in your mind. Think about a river then picture the river in your mind. Think about Jesus then picture him in your mind. Use those pictures as just the exercise to develop seeing. Sometimes they may be very clear, very vivid, very colored. Sometimes they will be just impressions, the more you practice the more pin sharp they become, as we just learn to focus our imagination, to focus the screen, so they become sharp and clean.
Now in this I would encourage you to make sure that you have no negative images in your mind. if you have seen things of a negative nature or things pop into your mind at this stage, then just take them captive- the thought bring them into alignment, repent if there are things you seen that are negatively coming back to you. We will deal with that whole issue when we look into opening our gateways and cleansing our imagination. But right now this is just an initial exercise so then you can relax and just begin to listen to the exercise with the beach. This is an exercise I did and it helped me first engage in being in the picture. So you can again use the images of each as a reference and then just engage in that as you follow the exercise through, you can read it through or just listen to it as I speak it through, so that you can just begin to engage in it yourself. Not just seeing it but actually actively engaging in it. Visualizing activates our imagination so we can use it voluntarily. Most of us have in voluntary encounters with our imagination where God gives us a picture or a vision. But we need to voluntarily be able to see and activate it so we can step into it.
the next step then is what we visualize becomes a doorway so we can step through and we can engage our spirit in cooperation and unity, soul and spirit coming together so that we can fully engage.
So the next step is to exercise that. Think about a door, the color the size the shape the handle. Just begin to think about that and picture in your mind. Then think about what is behind that door. Behind that door in this exercise there is a green pasture. So picture that in your mind and then see yourself reaching out with your hands and open the door, walk through the door into the green pasture. Then begin to see yourself in it, lie down, relax feel the peace that comes around you. Then Jesus is coming walking over to you as your Shepherd and he is going to sit down next you and begin to talk with you. Now converse with him. Ask him things, listen to him talking to you as a flow of thoughts that come into this picture. and don’t forget to journal your experience so you can go back into it. we can enter into a biblical scene to experience the revelation a scene contains. and then that will take us further into a personal relationship with Jesus with the father with the Holy Spirit in that scene so that we go beyond the exercise into engagement, where it becomes living and active. so the word becomes a visual doorway so we can step through. further on our journey will use these passages that talk about heaven and heavenly realms as doorways so we can step into heaven. We are just practicing right now.
another place to engage is to engage in with Jesus and his disciples Matthew 24:3. as he was sitting on the Mount of olives the disciples came to him privately saying tell us. so Jesus is sitting talking to his disciples. think about that scene. Jesus is talking and explaining things about the past present and future. think about that scene and begin to picture that scene. use the image if you need to and see yourself entering that scene and just sit down in it. then listen as Jesus shares something with you about your past present and future. If you ask him a question then listen to the answer that he reveals. the word of God becomes living and active to us as we learn to actually experience it by encounter. all our senses can be engaged to experience his presence, his healing, his wholeness into our bodies minds and emotions. just learn to tune them in and engage in his presence. it’s so important that we learn to come from that place of rest. so Matthew 11:28 is a good place to meditate in. come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I’ll give you rest take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. this is a place to come to find rest, so we can flow out of a place of rest. the word of God then becomes living and active to us. now I encourage you when you do this exercise to just think about Jesus coming before you, think about the burdens that you still carry, the weights of expectation that weigh heavy on you maybe from the past, think about the things maybe you’re still yoked to, tied to or chained to, things you’re struggling to break free from. just think about Jesus coming kneeling before you, wanting for you to give him those burdens, so that he can remove those yokes, loose those tethers and break those chains. just picture Jesus kneeling before you now and then off load your burdens to Jesus. Share your heart with him, just feel him lift the weight from your shoulders. feel his healing touch, feel his power touching you, empowering you. and again just talk to him, listen to him, enter into personal relationship with him. the last part of this meditative series is opening the eyes of our spirit. our spirit has eyes that need to be opened and activated. the veil is torn between the spiritual and natural realms for us through Jesus to engage. but it still like a closed curtain that needs to be drawn back. you can use the story of Elisha and his servant to activate the eyes of our spirit. as Elisha prayed that God would give his servant the ability to see into the realm the spirit. then we can take that and apply it to our own life.
2 kings 6:15-17 Elisha prayed and said Lord I pray open his eyes that he may see. then the Lord open the eyes of the young man and he saw and behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all round Elisha, he was seeing into the realm of the spirit. I am just going to declare some things over you now. just open your spirit to receive this declaration. I declare the veil of blindness to be removed. I declare the removal of all religious veils and mindsets that hide the truth from you. I declare that you can discover the truth and the reality of the real world. I declare the eyes of your spirit open. I declare that you can see and engage in the unseen realms. now just receive that declaration by faith. alow your spirit to become active. you can use the images below to help in the visualisation and activation of your spirit’s eyes. use the revelation from previous experiences and exercises so it enables you to enter into this reality, by this encounter by using your imagination to step in. this will require a constant and consistent practice. when we pick this up again in the future we will go deeper when we get further in the journey, when we will look and practice looking into the different realms the spirit around us. But this is just a taster. so activate our imagination now to open the eyes of our spirit, begin to look for a couple of minutes again just begin to cast we are burdens on to him. Cast all your thoughts on to him and just relax, still your mind think about the fact that the veil is torn. the realm of the spirit and the natural realm overlap. think about the black screen. just close your eyes and see that black screen. now open your eyes and hold your hand in front of your eyes and look at it closely. then close your eyes, can you see your hand. can you begin to picture your hand with your imagination. open your eyes and close your eyes several times so that you can begin to see and picture your hand. and see the black screen has a torn veil or a curtain and use your hand in your imagination to pull back the veil and begin to look. as the curtain opens up just begin to see .you may see a light you may see a portal you may see just colour you may just see flickers but just focus on what you see focus the attention of your spirit on the spiritual environment around you. so you can begin to sense and see or just know what is there around you right now. So just feel your spirit from your innermost being like a river, send out a wave of thought or light energy around you into the spiritual realm. and just be open to your body to receive the echo that comes back so that your mind will be able to interpret what’s in that unseen realm around you. you may see into the heavenly realms you may see into the spiritual realm around you which is the angelic realm you may become sensitive to your angels that are around you right now. you may just by interpretation of what you receive you make get a description of what’s around you. just be open for the eyes of your spirit to be able to see feel sense perceive the atmosphere, as it comes to you. just be sensitive, just practice this. it takes time to develop this, but practice practice practice all these exercises so that they become part of your daily life. so you can begin to engage. as you start to expand the time and the focus of these exercises they will become a lifestyle. you will be able to see with the eyes of your heart and the eyes of your spirit. you can go from two minutes per exercise to make it five minutes or 10 minutes so that you can live from your activated senses. you can use your imagination to step into any Scripture, step into anything that Scripture reveals. you can step in through the open door .you can have experiences in the river because you just learn to activate your senses. so I encourage you practice practice practice train your senses to discern through that practice use the exercises develop your own exercises make them yours so that you can just grow as we move onto the next serious module where we begin to open up our first Love gate these will be key to be able to experience and to engage in that.