In preparing for our destiny we need to build our spirit. Over a number of posts on this blog we have looked at:
- Giving God first love, place, priority
- Praying and singing in tongues
- Waiting on the Lord – ‘Be still and know that I am God’.
We are going on now to consider a fourth means of building up our spirit:
- Meditating on the words of God
My son, give attention to my words;
Incline your ear to my sayings.
Do not let them depart from your sight;
Keep them in the midst of your heart.
For they are life to those who find them
And health to all their body.
Watch over your heart with all diligence,
For from it flow the springs of life.
(Prov 4:20-23)
For the word of God is living and active (Heb 4:12).
When God speaks, His words are alive, and have power if we focus and meditate on what He says. When we allow that power to transform us, we can live in the power of the word we have received. Ultimately, the fullest expression of the Word of God is Jesus Himself. God speaks through many means, but scripture is a familiar one and is a good place to start. As we meditate on scripture, it is like going from 2D to a 3D experience. It comes alive and jumps off the page. You become part of what is going on.
A picture paints a thousand words
There is a saying, ‘a picture paints a thousand words’. That is why Jesus spoke in parables. The Bible is full of stories and illustrations that enable us not just to hear words that are being said, but to imagine and participate in what is going on. So we can have experiences, visions and pictures. We can gain revelation. We can experience things practically for ourselves. We can see things sometimes in worship, pictures visions, trances, all sorts of experiential things in which we can know God’s presence. You cannot know something, in the biblical sense of the word, with intellectual understanding. The word ‘know’ in the bible means ‘to know intimately, by personal experience’. You cannot know what you have not experienced. God wants us to receive those revelations.
Store or shred
When we receive them, it is really important that we do not just pass over them. We do not just say, ‘I had this picture, I had this dream’, and then forget about them. We write them down, record them, journal them. Then we can go back and review what we have seen, what God has said, and we can revisit those experiences and obtain more revelation and more understanding from them.
In meditation, if you go back over something and keep looking at it, drawing life from it, it shows that you value it. What you value, your brain will store (instead of shredding it).
We do not want to be just spiritual consumers. You can sit and read this blog, or watch one of my YouTube clips, even enrol in Engaging God, and allow me to teach you something. But you can also be a producer, by taking what God reveals to you and applying it to your own life, and bringing forth your own fruit.
I can share my experiences of going to heaven, and having heavenly encounters with the Father, with Jesus, the angels, the men in white linen and so on. That is all very good, but God wants you to have your own experiences. They may not be the same as mine, but they will be yours. God shows no favouritism. If you do what I did, you will get what I got. But you will not get it just by reading these posts or hearing me speak. You have to pursue Him for yourself. You have to put into practice some basic techniques and principles; and meditating on what He says to you is one of the most important of them. And meditation is not just something ethereal: you have to apply what you receive to your own life.
Tomatoes
It is like tomatoes.
If you like to eat tomatoes, what most people do is go and buy some from the greengrocer or the supermarket. That is being a consumer. Someone else puts in a whole lot of effort to grow them, package them, transport them and offer them up for you to buy and eat. But you could learn how to grow tomatoes for yourself. You would have to have seed to plant, learn about types of soil and compost, transplant your seedlings, remember to water and care for them, make sure they get the right amount of sun and shelter, support the growing plants, prune them, and so on. Eventually, you get tomatoes.
When you eat a tomato you have grown, how much better does it taste than one you have bought from the shops? Even Tesco’s Finest? It tastes wonderful. There is nothing like picking fruit and vegetables straight from the garden and eating them. And besides all that, you have put so much into them that you get a real sense of achievement too. It is much more work, but so much more rewarding.
Seek it for yourself
In the same way, when you hear about my relationship with God and my encounters with the Holy Spirit, that can benefit you, and you can be blessed by hearing about them. But maybe hearing about my experiences will create a desire in you for something, so that you go away and seek that relationship and those experiences for yourself. And that, I can promise you, will bless you and benefit you on a whole other level.
Be willing to get hold of the truth of God’s words to you. Spend time in His presence. Learn how to meditate on scripture and on prophetic words or revelation you have received. Learn how to speak in tongues, inside and outside. Build up your spirit so that you can encounter God for yourself in that way. Then you will have first hand revelation knowledge of God as Father, of Jesus as a friend, of the Holy Spirit as a guide.
If you plant a seed and just leave it, it is true you may get some fruit from it. But it is likely to be a far healthier and more fruitful plant if you tend and water it. God’s desire is that we learn to live from the fruit of our relationship with Him, and when we eat, it transforms and enables us.
It is not instant, or automatic. But if we are willing to put the effort in, God is willing to reveal Himself to us in deeper and more intimate ways.