Our rejoicing in the testimonies of God will naturally flow in a habitual meditation in them.

Posted : 19 Feb, 2013 02:22 AM

Psalm 119:15 I will meditate in Your precepts, and have respect to Your ways.





Our rejoicing in the testimonies of God will naturally flow in a

habitual meditation in them. The thoughts follow the

affections. The carnal man can never be brought to this

resolution. Having no spiritual taste, he has no ability for

spiritual meditation. Indeed many sincere Christians, through

remaining weakness and depravity, are too often reluctant to

it. They are content with indolent reading: and, with scarcely a

struggle or a trial, yield themselves up to the persuasion, that

they are unable sufficiently to abstract their minds for this

blessed employment. But let the trial prove the work.

Perseverance will accomplish the victory over mental

instability, and the spiritual difficulty will give way to prayer,

"Lord! help me." The fruitfulness of this employment will soon

be manifest. Does it not "stir up the gift of God that is in us,"

and keep the energies of the heart in a wakeful posture of

conflict and resistance? Besides this, it is the digestive faculty

of the soul, which converts the word into real and proper

nourishment: so that this revolving of a single verse in our

minds is often better than the mere reading of whole chapters.

"Your words were found, and I ate them; and Your word was

to me the joy and the rejoicing of my heart." Thus the mind

becomes the instrument of faith and love-of joy and strength.

But this meditation not only includes the stated times of

thought, but the train of holy thoughts, that pass through the

mind during the busy hours of the day. This maintains a

habitual flow of spiritual desires, and excites the flame of love

within, until at length the Psalmist's resolution becomes the

inwrought habit of our minds-"I will meditate in Your precepts." Can we lack a subject for meditation, if indeed the salvation of

Jesus has been made known to our souls? While musing

upon the glorious theme, does not "the fire burn" within, as if

our hearts were touched with a live coal from the altar of God?

Chide then, believer, your dull and sluggish spirit, that permits

the precious manna to lie ungathered upon the ground, that is

slow to entertain these heavenly thoughts, or rather that

heavenly guest, whose peculiar office it is to "help our

infirmities," and especially to "take of Christ's, and show it to

us."

The exercise, however, of this, as of every other duty, may

prove a barren form, that imparts neither pleasure nor profit.

Let each of us then ask- 'What distinct experimental benefit

have I received from the word? Do I endeavor to read it with

prayerful meditation, until I find my heart filled with it?'

But this communing with the word is not for contemplation, but

for practice. By meditating on God's precepts, we learn to

have respect unto His ways- carefully "pondering the path of

our feet," that we "turn not aside."" Your loving-kindness is

before my eyes; and I have walked in Your truth." "My foot,"

says Job, "has held His steps; His ways have I kept, and not

declined. Neither have I gone back from the commandment of

His lips; I have esteemed the words of His mouth more than

my necessary food."



by

Charles Bridges

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