How does christians meditate
Finally, you take a moment to contemplate the Scripture again, inviting the Holy Spirit to illuminate your experience. Many Christians begin their days with morning meditation. They will use a Scripture verse from their Bible or a devotional as the starting place for a time of meditation. You can ask yourself the same questions every time you have a morning meditation, then record your answers in a notebook.
Ending your morning meditation time with prayer is a good way to start your day. Another way to meditate is through mindfulness. For example, you may meditate on a verse during a walk outdoors, praising him for all the sights and sounds of nature. You could also meditate on Scripture while sitting indoors and observing all the input from your five senses. When you use Scripture for your starting point, mindfulness can enhance your spiritual walk.
Many hymns and contemporary worship songs are filled with Bible verses. You can also meditate on the spiritual truths in the songs to grow in faith. Christian meditation is convenient and easy to do on the go when you use this type of meditation. There are many books, apps and online videos that you can use for guided meditation. You can also use a Bible commentary to dig deeper. Start by choosing one book of the Bible, such as Psalms, as the theme for your meditation practice.
Then select digital or printed materials to help you get more from the book you chose. Meditation for Anxiety Anxiety is at an epidemic level in our culture today. One of the easiest, cheapest, and most effective ways to treat anxiety is through Christian meditation. And there is so much history within Christianity around this wonderful practice of meditating. May the encouragements of Scripture and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit lead each of us to an embracing of this incredible opportunity in Christian meditation.
Apple Podcasts Spotify Podcast Conversations. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.
For many years I believed the word of God was meant just for reading and studying—like a textbook on life. I believed it was authored by a good God, and I tried to read it, as I knew I should, but it never made an impact on my life to the level God desired. For many of us the idea of meditation is a confusing one.
Modern Christians, notably Protestants, seem to have lost the practice of this important spiritual discipline. We confuse it with practices of other religions, such as Buddhism, and therefore cast it aside as too mystical or even wrong. But Christian meditation does not involve emptying your mind as in Eastern religions; rather it fills us with the knowledge of God and his presence.
Meditation is about receiving, not casting out. So what does meditation look like in the Christian context? You can meditate on Biblical words like Peace, Hope, Love. Speaking these over your life can cause a transformation. And that is what we are! Choose what you feel the Holy Spirit leading you to, ask the Lord to guide you, and access what you need in your spiritual life.
This will help you decide which Biblical word or phrase to meditate on. This is crucial for your Christian meditation because you want to try your best to be entirely focused. It helps if you are comfortable and not distracted because it allows a wide-open space for the Holy Spirit to move.
A calm and comfortable place will provide you with the space and comfort you need to meditate. If you are feeling unsafe or uncomfortable, it may be very hard for you to focus on meditation. Find a place that you know you will be comfortable. Likewise, it must be a calm place. This is because our thoughts can be easily disrupted by our outside surroundings.
When the space around us is calm and peaceful we will not be distracted, which allows us to go deeper into meditation. An appropriate atmosphere looks like the calm and comfortable place that we spoke about in Step 3, but it is also so much more than that. You must ask yourself what is more appropriate for you? Will your bedroom cause you to become sleepy? Sure, it is calm and comfortable, but not appropriate. If you will have a hard time focusing in your bedroom, try going outside. Outside can be very appropriate, especially if you have an easy time connecting to God through nature.
If your living room is a hard place to meditate due to disruptions, try going out to your car. There is actually a way to create an intentional atmosphere for meditation.
We really recommend this if you have the resources because they have proven to be quite helpful for meditation. When meditating, we must invite the Trinity into our hearts and minds, and into the time that we have set apart for Him. Invite the Lord into your spirit and mind, deliberately. Also, ask the Lord to forgive you of any sin in your life, because sin separates us from God. We need the Trinity to minister to our hearts and to bring the knowledge from our mind, into our innermost being.
In this article I want to reclaim it as one of the essential spiritual disciplines for all believers. To meditate properly our souls must reflect upon what our minds have ingested and our hearts must rejoice in what our souls have grasped.
We have truly meditated when we slowly read, prayerfully imbibe and humbly rely upon what God has revealed to us in his Word. All of this, of course, in conscious dependence on the internal, energizing work of the Spirit. It is a conscious, continuous engagement of the mind with God. This renewing of the mind Rom. Jonathan Edwards describes the impact of one particular encounter with the power and wonder of creation:.
The appearance of everything was altered: there seemed to be, as it were, a calm, sweet cast, or appearance of divine glory, in almost everything. God's excellency, his wisdom, his purity and love, seemed to appear in everything; in the sun, moon and stars; in the clouds, and blue sky; in the grass, flowers, trees; in the water, and all nature; which used greatly to fix my mind.
I often used to sit and view the moon, for a long time; and so in the day time, spent much time in viewing the clouds and sky, to behold the sweet glory of God in these things: in the mean time, singing forth with a low voice, my contemplations of the Creator and Redeemer.
And scarce any thing, among all the works of nature, was so sweet to me as thunder and lightning. Formerly, nothing had been so terrible to me. I used to be a person uncommonly terrified with thunder: and it used to strike me with terror, when I saw a thunder-storm rising. But now, on the contrary, it rejoiced me. I felt God at the first appearance of a thunder-storm. And used to take the opportunity at such times to fix myself to view the clouds, and see the lightnings play, and hear the majestic and awful voice of God's thunder: which often times was exceeding entertaining, leading me to sweet contemplations of my great and glorious God.
Then my spirit made a diligent search. I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your wonders of old. For example, unlike eastern meditation, which advocates emptying the mind, Christian meditation calls on us to fill our mind with God and his truth.
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