What is Bible Meditation?

Word and Spirit

Teach me, LORD, the way of your decrees, that I may follow it to the end.

Psalm 119:33

Bible meditation is the diligent and careful consideration of God’s Word for the purpose of growing in the knowledge of God and for the obtaining of practical holiness. The believer uses his or her own rational abilities combined with Spirit-led illumination and heart-felt participation to engage God’s Spirit-inspired Word. We study the Bible to learn God’s ways, grow into God’s character, and learn God’s commands.

God has ordained that the eye-opening work of his Spirit always be combined with the mind-informing work of his Word.

John Piper, A Godward Life, Book Two (Sisters, OR: Multnomah Press, 1999), 184.

I seek the will of the Spirit of God through, or in connection with, the Word of God. The Spirit and the Word must be combined. If I look to the Spirit alone without the Word, I lay myself open to great delusions. If the Holy Spirit guides us, He will do it according to the Scriptures and never contrary to them.

George Muller, http://www.mullers.org/ .

“I Gave Myself Fully to the Lord”

Full and Complete Surrender to the Lordship of Christ

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ

Phil. 3:8

Surrender is a yielding of the heart to the Lord, which says, “yes” to God’s guidance, leading, and direction. Full surrender releases the Holy Spirit, the Resident Boss, to do anything he wants in and through us. Without hesitation, questioning, or equivocation, we joyfully obey the Holy Spirit’s commands allowing him to have his way in us. Only in full and complete surrender can true peace and fulfillment be found in the Christian life.

I became a believer in the Lord Jesus in November, 1825, nearly seventy years ago. The first four years after my conversion were spent in spiritual weakness; but in July, 1829, now sixty-six years ago, I came to a place of entire surrender of heart. I gave myself fully to the Lord. Honors, pleasure, money, my physical powers, my mental powers, all were laid down at the feet of Jesus, and I became a great lover of God. I found my all in God, and have continued to do so, in all my temporal and spiritual trials, for these past sixty-six years. My faith does not pertain to only temporal blessings, but to everything, because I stand constantly on God’s Word. It has been my knowledge of God and His Word that has thus sustained me.

George Mueller quoted in His Victorious Indwelling, ed., Nick Harrison (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998), 192.