23 Jun Digesting the Word
Meditation for Preparation | Digesting the Word
Read: Psalm 1
This Sunday we will begin our summer series through selected Psalms. Chad Ferrell will preach from Psalm 1, considering the way of the righteous in contrast to the way of the wicked. As you prepare your heart for our corporate gathering, let these words from C. H. Spurgeon encourage and challenge you in the area of scriptural meditation.
Heart Preparation
“I will meditate on your precepts.” ~ Psalm 119:15
There are times when solitude is better than company, and silence is wiser than speech. We would be better Christians if we were alone more often, waiting on God and gathering through meditation on His Word spiritual strength for service in His kingdom. We ought to ponder the things of God, because that is how we get the real nutriment out of them.
Truth is something like the cluster of the vine: In order to have wine from it, we must bruise it; we must press and squeeze it many times. The bruiser’s feet must come down joyfully on the bunches or else the juice will not flow; and the grapes must be properly tread or else much of the precious liquid will be wasted. So we must, by meditation, tread the clusters of truth if we desire the wine of consolation from them.
Our bodies are not supported by merely taking food into the mouth, but the process that really supplies the muscle and the nerve and the sinew and the bone is the process of digestion. It is by digestion that the outward food becomes assimilated with the inner life. Our souls are not nourished merely by listening for a while to this and then to that and then to the other part of divine truth. Hearing, reading, marking, and learning all require inward digesting to complete their usefulness, and the inward digesting of the truth lies mainly in meditating upon it.
Why is it that some Christians, although they hear many sermons, make only slow advances in the Christian life? Because they neglect their closets and do not thoughtfully meditate on God’s Word. They love the wheat, but they do not grind it; they want the corn, but they will not go out into the fields to gather it; the fruit hangs on the tree, but they will not pluck it; the water flows at their feet, but they will not stoop to drink it. Deliver us, O Lord, from such folly, and may this be our resolve this morning: “I will meditate on your precepts.”
October 12th Morning Reading from Morning and Evening, by C. H. Spurgeon
Song List for Sunday
- He Is Exalted, Shane and Shane Arrangement
- God’s Word Stands Sure Forever, by Daniel Creswell
- Cornerstone, by Hillsong Live
- Speak, O Lord, by The Gettys
- Be Thou My Vision, by Crosspoint Music