The Necessity of Meditating on Scripture (part three)
By Jay Wegter When the believer meditates on the Word, he literally preaches to himself the will of God; the
wonders of God; the ways of God; and the works of God; and the Gospel of God. Maturing Christians meditate upon Scripture—this involves building a case for obedience and building a case against disobedience. Here is the great difference between merely reading Scripture and actually meditating upon God’s Word. Scripture constantly joins divine commands to the benefits of obedience. “How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked” (Ps 1:1). And Scripture spells out the consequences of disobedience. “He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm” (Prov 13:20). Through Scripture meditation, we learn to love the truth in order to be conformed to it (Rom 12:1-2).
The Christian worldview is incredibly demanding. We must know the reasons for self-denial; for daily taking up our cross—our usefulness in the Kingdom of God depends upon it. Central to our ‘crossbearing’ is role Scripture meditation plays in our sanctification—the growing believer learns to mentally wrestle and argue through the commands of Scripture. This incorporates an aggressive faith which engages in discerning good from evil (Heb 5:14). How necessary this has become in our information-saturated culture—for the believer has to wade through much ‘misinformation’.
The secret to overcoming the controlling power of sin is in ‘deconstructing’ the lies that drive lust and temptation. Hebrews 6:11-12 tells us that we must show the same diligence as the saints who have gone before us—so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end, that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. We can only run the race set before us with stamina if we fix our eyes on Jesus and lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us (Heb 12:2). We ‘fix our eyes’ upon Jesus by meditating upon His excellence and perfections.
The lusts that seek to hold us are animated by lies. Scripture refers to these lie-driven lusts as the lusts of deceit (Eph 4:22). We use Scripture to unravel the lies that energize temptation. But this is precisely where we are lazy thinkers. We hesitate to actually exert the mental energy necessary to ‘out-truth’ the lies behind the lusts—but we must do this in order to succeed against sin. The world has always offered itself as genuine source to satisfy our soul’s thirst. Scripture compares the world to a leaky cistern (reservoir) which can hold no water (Jer 2:13). God tells us that if one is a friend of the world; he is an enemy of God (James 4:4). To be a friend of the world is to believe the lie that the world is one’s true source. So antithetical are God and the world in terms of source; that to regard the world as source is to be an avowed enemy of God. In our meditation we preach the truth to ourselves with enough conviction to drown out and expose the lie. The Christian must be on the offensive in this matter. He has no choice. For you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth, trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. And do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them; for it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret (Eph 5:8-12).
This pattern of lust operating by deceit is only broken when work is done in the recesses of the soul. The lie must be excavated, exposed, and refuted through Scripture meditation. The Christian will have to preach to himself the boundaries which God has erected to safeguard personal holiness. Tear down the temple of lust with truth in order to build the edifice of purity—the latter replaces the former (Eph 4:22-32). Solid biblical thinking is formed during meditation. Happy is the man who knows the ways of the Lord; and wise is the man who knows how sin operates. Iniquity has a kind of life of its own—it permits no competitors; accepts no truce. It wants complete dominion. Sin can’t wait to initiate a coup; a hostile takeover. It will slander God in order to sustain its existence. It will publish the most horrific lies about God in order to seduce one sinner by its promised charms. Sin is parasitic; like the cuckoo which lays its eggs in other birds’ nests. The cuckoo chick, upon hatching, pushes all the eggs of the natural mother out of the nest so that the parents’ food and energies go completely into raising the alien parasite chick. Sin behaves in a similar manner. It seeks to eliminate any competition for its host’s time, talent, and affection. Wise is the man who knows that sin never abides in a static position; it is either being conquered; or is conquering. We either overcome it or are overcome by it. By the power of enabling grace, it is the former for God’s child.