Category: Teaching Topics

“I am writing these things to you so that . . .” I John

If I went and grabbed an old journal and decided to share a page with you, after reading it, you would probably ask this question. “When did you write this? And what was happening in your life at the time?” You’d ask because context is everything.

While the whole bible is inspired and infallible, God used the pens of men to compose it. They are from different places, different times, and possess different personalities and stories. To fully appreciate and connect with what they are writing, it helps to know each one better.

Meditation skill #2: Investigate the author and know his story.

I am to wonder who authored my meditation.  Was he a type-A personality or a contemplative? Was he in a good period of his life or under great duress? Was he young or old? Knowing the answers (if they are available) means that I can feel comforted when I am experiencing the same circumstances as the author. His words will mean more because of shared experiences ~ even though we are many centuries apart. I won’t consider the Bible just a history book. The authors can be embraced as spiritual family members. Their lives and stories are my personal history.

Oftentimes, hints are given in the very passage I’m reading. John, in his epistles, tells his readers why he is writing. I get an instant picture of motive, of passion, and why he felt the words were imperative. Application is much simpler when intent is revealed and love is the driving force.

Truth is always meant to be a heart thing. Meditation feeds the mind but fortifies the heart. Over time, I feel a bond with the one who wrote the words. When reading the Psalms, for example, I often ask God to tell David how grateful I am for his songs and laments.

Scripture is not abstract poetry and historical storytelling. Personalize it with the breath of Your Spirit. Amen

“But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.” John 16:13 

I can be so familiar with well-known scriptures and bible stories that I believe I know what they mean. I assume that reading them only involves a kind of review. That’s a mistake and if I begin to meditate without prayer, I will get little or nothing out of it. I will be feasting on yesterday’s manna.

The first meditation skill: Before opening the scriptures, ask God to open your heart.

Before setting my eyes on a handful of verses to meditate on, I stop. I make a request for spiritual eyesight. I ask the Holy Spirit to speak to me. I admit that I am blind without the work of the Spirit giving light to the eyes of my understanding. I consider King Solomon who, at the beginning of his reign, saw his inability to rule wisely. He said to Yahweh, “And now, O LORD my God, you have made your servant king in place of David my father, although I am but a little child. I do not know how to go out or come in.” I Kings 3:7 

Revelation, insight, wisdom, spiritual understanding ~ these are supernatural gifts. I should never be proud of what I know and never impressed with how much I understand. It has all been a gracious gift to an undeserving sinner. I did not even possess enough spiritual insight to become a believer. The wind of the Spirit had to open my eyes to the glory of Jesus so I could even believe. I am saved through faith alone, nothing for which I can take credit.

Whether you land on a few verses from the Psalms, the book of John, or a heavyweight passage from Hebrews, the process must always be the same. It starts with this prayer.

“Lord, I come humbly and acknowledge that I will know nothing apart from what You will show me. Open the eyes of my heart. Let me see Your glory. In Jesus’ name, Amen”

Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” John 7:37-38 

Brainwashing. Programming. Two more terms that Christians usually associate with spiritual darkness.  Yet, the washing of our hearts and the re-programming our thought life are two biblical concepts. It is possible to think in whole new ways, ways that are opposite to how I currently think. It is possible to carve out new mental pathways where there were none before. It is possible to re-program the way I look at things. I can believe something deeply for forty years but experience a mental shakeup when scripture redefines my perception of things. Through His Word, God fashions a whole new mindset!

Ever come up against someone’s mindset in an argument? Perhaps you have argued regularly with someone and after hours of heated debate, deception didn’t budge. You couldn’t imagine why you, or they, couldn’t see the truth. The problem was not an individual thought of deception but a whole conglomeration of thoughts; a mindset that was formed over a lifetime. Only God could, and can, change that.  And, He is eager to.  When Paul encouraged believers to understand the divine power they possessed that could destroy arguments and lofty opinions that are against God, the word for ‘arguments’ in Greek is the same word for ‘mindset.’   God can, and will, destroy and re-create a new mindset for anyone who is willing to undergo the discomfort, but great rewards, of spiritual surgery.   For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God.  II Corinthians 10:4-5

In scripture, God tells me the way things work. He tells me who He is, who I am, the way the world works, and the way the kingdom operates. Any paradigm outside of a kingdom paradigm is dysfunction and death.

In the messiness of life, meditation is imperative. When I feel abandoned by God, meditation has me focus on His faithfulness. When I fear He hasn’t heard my prayers, meditation zeroes in on His promises to answer prayer. When my feelings trip me up, meditation reorders my thoughts and channels my emotions to match up with Truth. A brainwashing and re-programming commences as His Spirit re-writes my beliefs.

Tomorrow, I’ll begin writing about some meditation skills that have made all the difference for me. The year was 1997.  It was the first day of the rest of my life.

For many of my sisters, I anticipate a new tomorrow. Amen

Satan is never original. He can’t create anything. He takes what was God’s, twists it and perverts it, and then calls it his. So in light of that, why would Christians believe that ‘meditation’ is synonymous with ‘New Age’? It is not. It originated with God and it is His concept. Satan hijacked it. God gave it to His people all the way back in the book of Deuteronomy.

“You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.  You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. Deut. 11:18-19

Meditation was clearly supposed to be a way of life. It is a practice where scripture simmers constantly in my thoughts. If I am out for a walk, having lunch with a friend, sitting at my desk working, or straightening up my family room, thoughts of scripture co-exist alongside my life. I’m still turning over and over the meaning of what I read earlier. I’m talking to the Holy Spirit about it and asking Him to unveil what is hidden to me.

Meditation is not the same as bible study. It is not the same as reading through the bible in a year. Meditation involves a couple of verses at a time. The Hebrew word for meditate is ‘hagah’ which means to savor slowly. “Taste (hagah) and see that the Lord is good.” Psalm 34:8 To savor a bite of food means that it sits on my tongue and I chew it slowly. I engage with the taste of it in every way possible before swallowing. Jeremiah said, “Your words were found and I ate them; and they were the joy and rejoicing of my heart.” Jeremiah 15:16

Why meditate? Because it re-wires the way I think, aligns my feelings, and changes me into someone who thinks, feels, and then acts like Jesus. So, how do I meditate? What skills are involved? I’m going to make this the topic of our devotionals for the next week. Be prepared to see the parched spiritual landscape of your life change with the addition of this life-giving, God-given spiritual discipline.

In 1997, I was in a deep spiritual, emotional, and physical pit of despair. For three years, I began to engage in biblical mediation alongside bible study. Upon this ~ I finally experienced personal transformation. And upon this ~ Daughters of Promise was born.

Let us sit up straight together, Lord. Sisters. Students. Taught by the Spirit of the Rabbi. We will be changed and it will be stunning. Amen

Now Herod was very glad when he saw Jesus; for he had wanted to see Him for a long time, because he had been hearing about Him and was hoping to see some sign performed by Him. And he questioned Him at some length; but He answered him nothing. Luke 23:8-9

Jesus had a lot of practice holding in the truth. He was under a God-imposed silence for thirty years. Jesus knew He was the Messiah. He knew He was the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies. Yet, when most of us would have caved to just blurt out the truth, He didn’t.

Can you imagine Him as a boy, then as a teenager, and finally as a grown man in His local synagogue? While the temple in Jerusalem could hold hundreds of thousands of people, rural synagogues were made up of a handful of local villagers. It was intimate. Everyone knew everyone.   And with the Jewish people languishing under the unfair rule of the Roman Empire, Jesus would have been raised on years of lament. Friends and family would have cried out in prayer for the coming of their Savior, for the Messiah to be born. And yet all the while, Jesus knew it was He. If He’d spoken, it might have brought hope to their despair. Didn’t that have value? I wonder if He asked this question of His heavenly Father.

When God released His tongue to speak of His true identity, it brought more controversy than comfort. His first disclosure happened at His local synagogue among friends and family. He declared that He was the fulfillment of Isaiah 61. As special a child as He had been, as unexplainable as a few of His miracles had appeared, His news was received as heresy. Long time friends and brothers drove him out to the edge of a cliff in order to trap Him and then execute Him. We’ll never know if Jesus had been waiting for that day to finally declare His mission and identity. Perhaps as a child, He thought He would be celebrated. All of that changed as He saw even family members join the company of accusers.

Many have the spiritual gift of discernment and of prophecy. They are the first ones to whom God discloses the truth of certain matters. It is lonely and the burden is great. The first thing one wants to do when seeing truth is to declare it. It’s hard to sit on it. And yet truth, when delivered outside of God’s timetable, has disastrous consequences. The hardest thing for a prophet is to see the truth and then have their mouth shut by the Spirit of God. The prophet is instructed to pray instead of talk. Where is the comfort for the one who sees what others do not see? It is in this ~ Jesus knows. His self-imposed silence spanned three decades. Though there were hundreds of scenarios when He was tempted to think it wise to speak up, His Father squelched it and silenced Him.

Oh Jesus, there was grace for you as a young Messiah and there is grace for us today who see but are cautioned to watch and pray behind closed mouths. Amen

He [Jesus] said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.” Matthew 13:52

Every child of God should be constrained to share their faith and to tell the story of their relationship with Jesus. The storylines differ from person to person. Some have come to Jesus with no history of Christianity whatsoever. They have had no teaching and must get to know their Lord without the benefit of familiarity. This has its benefits though. Their heart is a clean slate upon which God can write.

Others, like me, have come to Jesus with years of Christian history under their belt. We have been saturated in church culture. We know a lot of scripture and can espouse many of the doctrines. Much of this was learned under the heavy hand of legalism, and let’s face it ~ Hasn’t it been tempting to throw it all out and start fresh with Jesus?

In this short parable, Jesus makes it clear that the most effective teacher uses the new and the old. He reaches into the archives of the teaching he was given and realizes that even though the teachers were flawed, the doctrines were usually sound. And if sound, they are treasures.  Part of maturity is to be able to value the truth apart from the messengers who delivered it. While they often marred the face of a gracious God, God used them to build a rock-solid foundation of scripture into the spiritual fiber of their young people.

It took me a long time to value my history in the church. I swung the pendulum the other way and over-corrected. For a while, I threw out the hymns. I also stayed away from anything that resembled ‘hell, fire, and brimstone.’ I shunned all messages that lacked the blend of truth and grace. Eventually, I was able to make a move back to the middle. The hymns became new to me. The scriptures I had memorized were available to me in prayer, also in my attempt to encourage others. I understood their context without having to engage in a lot of study. God opened my eyes to see the treasures and helped me discard what had been unprofitable.

In this ministry and by the grace of God, I am able to teach from the old and the new. God has done a new work of grace in my life but each experience has been built upon, and has been accentuated by, the foundation of learning that has served me well.

This mixture is what we are to pass on to those who come after us. Mentoring must be balanced with love-driven education and experiences with Jesus. Otherwise, knowledge taught outside the context of a relationship with the Savior will become a burden, not a joy. When I sit and learn at the feet of Jesus, my teaching will become contagious and the learning, effortless.

If there is more of the old I need to embrace, reveal it. If there is more I am to discard, let it surface. Be the sifter, Lord Jesus. In Jesus’ name, Amen

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.  Genesis 1:1                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.  John 1:1

When I make something, I begin with pre-existing pieces.  Make a cake and I have a list of ingredients that already exist.  Fashion a piece of pottery and there is clay to mold.  I don’t make the clay.  While I am only an artisan, God is a Creator.  He made the earth out of nothing.  There was a void for Him to work with except omnipotent power.  If He wanted water, He made water where there had been nothingness.  Water had never been and didn’t even have a name!

This is what makes God ~ God.  This is where He excels.  He has not changed with time.  His power has not diminished.  This same creative God of Genesis spoke again through the prophet Isaiah and said, “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?  I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”  Isaiah 43:19  Once again, something out of nothing.

Throughout my life, I have stood (and am standing) on this powerful truth in prayer. My Father can bring something about when I see absolutely no evidence that such a thing will ever exist.  He can bring reconciliation when there is hatred.  He can bring repentance when there is stubborn rebellion.  He can bring opportunity when others haven’t yet thought of it.  He can bring provision when cupboards are empty.  He can bring hope to the hopeless and honor to the shamed.

What needs to be created that, as of now, doesn’t exist?  If we are God’s, His power and promises are at work over the expanse of our lives, over the deep and the unseen.

You love to create.  I just look at the world and see the glorious detail in all You have made.  Speak Your Word over my life and bring into existence what is not yet there yet.  When it appears, I will fall to my knees in worship.  Amen

…that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. Ephesians 1:17

Intimacy means that I will probably have an idea of how someone I’m close to will react to something ahead of time. “Oh, he will like this or hate that. Or, be angry over this; even moved by that.” There are no shortcuts to knowing a person that well, either. Time and investment are required.

Ron and I have been married for 44 years. Yesterday, I walked in the kitchen and said, “You know what?” He chuckled and gave me four possible subjects I might address. He then continued with a couple of points I’d make about each topic. I was laughing and undone. He could have easily been right on all counts but this time, he didn’t guess it. My point is, there is nothing like longevity in a loving relationship.

Do I know God that well? I should. If I’ve spent enough time hanging out with Him, getting to know what He loves and hates, becoming acquainted with what makes him angry or sad, familiarizing myself with what kind of person He blesses and whom He shuns, I should also be able to predict pretty accurately what He thinks about a certain situation. Not only do I have history to lean on, or the Word to refer to, but I have His Holy Spirit inside of me emitting His feelings. The latter is not talked about enough.

Have you ever felt God’s sadness over someone lost? Have you felt His disappointment at the news of a failed marriage? Have you felt His grief, even anger, when a church has grown cold? I believe that I should pray more, “Lord, let me feel what You feel about this.

After a long life with Jesus, there should be a certain amount of predictability. Time and investment affords that.

Re-write my mind with the washing of the water of the Word. The outcome ~ intimacy with You. Amen