The Pilgrimage

In the last blog entry I tried to outline the broad contours of what it means to meditate on Scripture. Now let’s come in for the close-up. I’ll share with you what works for me. In fact, this has helped me as much as anything in my Christian life.

Meditation on Scripture, is, for me, simply a matter of preaching the truth to myself. I take a biblical verse or paragraph or promise or precept and preach to myself about it in the presence of God. I just talk to myself with the truth, remind myself of the truth, and seek to apply the truth to my own life.

This takes a couple of forms. One is that I will often memorize a verse for the day - often it is the same verse for several days in a row. I bring it to mind at different points throughout the day, and “chew on it” as I’m driving, in between different tasks, etc… The other form is when, for instance, I am going for a walk, run, or long drive. In those cases I have found it extremely encouraging to spend some extended time in this kind of meditation on a passage of Scripture.

Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones once said that the chief problem with most defeated believers is that they spend too much time listening to themselves rather than talking to themselves with the truth.

In the next entry, I will share more about what Dr Lloyd-Jones had to say about this. In the meantime, quit listening to yourself and start preaching the truth to yourself. I think you’ll be delighted with the results!