Meditate

 I will meditate on your majestic, glorious splendor and your wonderful miracles.  Psalm 145:5

We have long pursued the "knowing" of God.  To connect with the reality of the divine is quite the pursuit.  Oh, we know the facts that we read in the Bible.  We might have an experience of him in our lives, but can we hold that experience and let it flower into a deeper life with him?

I believe that proper meditation of God - his splendor and miracles for each of us - deserves to be multiplied.  It's an effort that the church has attempted to guide for a long time.  The stained glass of the buildings, the religious icons artfully presented, even the movies that we make today attempt to provide a bridge to realizing God's presence.

Yet, there is a difference between those man-made presentations and the actual presence of God.  Think about the difference between seeing a picture of a mountain or standing at its base.  Compare a video of pounding waves with swimming in them.  Note the difference between a picture of your team's football stadium or laying on the 50-yard line of the field.  

I remember the holy presence of laying at the foot of El Capitan.  It is breath-taking and focusing.  There is nothing like the lap of the tide at your feet or the terror of being caught in a riptide.  I have joined in with the crowd at the entrance of my team onto the football field.  No distant picture or video compares...and barely holds the emotions of the original act.  No replica will do.

Even God's word - clear, illuminating and truth-telling - is no substitute for the indwelling of the presence of God through his Holy Spirit.  The printed word comes alive only when the voice and movement bears its truth in our lives.  Meditation can provide that movement as we take a printed or spoken truth and remember how its truth is portrayed in us.

Gratitude is an easy meditative example.  Think of a delightful meal or drink you had this week.  How does that provision remind you of God?  What person presented love and care for you today.  How do you see God in that gift?  To take the time to re-live those moments is to truly meditate.  

The Psalm says, "Taste and see that the Lord is good."  Our senses, given by God, can supply us the conduit for meditation.  We know best with our senses.  Thus, meditation moves us from the printed Word - though good - into our heart where Christ dwells.

Life-Before-Death

 Someone came to Jesus with this question:  "Teacher, what must I do, what good thing must I do, to have and hold eternal life."  Matthew 19:16

We are looking for that "eternal life" and I think most of us don't even know what we are looking for.  Eternity is often explained and thought of as something in the future, but according to the Greek, it is more.  The implications of the language make it clear that this life is current.  It is life now.  It is life for now as much as in the future, which I like to call "life-before-death" because too many times we think this culminated life is only futuristic - after our death.

        "Eternal" - aionios - with no beginning and no end. So, this timeline doesn't start in the future, but has been ongoing.  This fulness has been possible all the time, the future only being an extension of what we have gained now.

        "Life" - Zoe - being in the state of vital living - in absolute fulness.  It is life active and vigorous: blessed and animated for the causes of community and God.  It is sometimes translated as "lifetime."  

        "What must I do" - agathos - sometimes translated as "good deed," but not really.  It's more positional - having a good constitution or nature; being good, pleasant, agreeable, joyful;  upright or honorable.

What if salvation, resurrection and eternal life is in the present:  us living our fullest life of goodness within our beings and within our surroundings....as God intended.  That is righteousness - literally "rightness" - to be as God intended, as he created us to be.  Jesus loves me just as he created me and then died to bring me closer to the divine.  He likes what I am.  He enjoys my presence, guards my journey.

Psalm 37:3-4 Trust and do the good* thing (for yourself) and live into what God provides and rest/keep company in his faithfulness.  Take joy in the Eternal.  His gifts are coming and they will meet your heart's needs.

        * good - tob - pleasant, better, well, merry, prosperous, precious, beautiful, glad; of rich moral character.

God wants the best for me now and into eternity.  I don't need to hit the wall of goodness after death, but live fully now in the life he has ushered in for me through the life and death of his Son.  

Make me ready to receive!

Attitude

 From an adult student:  "Our attitudes cannot be situational.  They must come from deep inside of who we are, otherwise, we are just pawns - victims of our circumstances.  This is life-diminishing."

Have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.  Though he was God, he did not think it was his place to seize that role as an opportunity; he did not cling to that identity for his advantage.

Instead, he gave up his divine privileges, took on the humble position of a slave and submitted to being born a human being as he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal's death on a cross.  Philippians 2:5-8

While Christ understood who he was, he also understood what his role was while on earth.  He came to save the least and the lost and could only do that by joining the community of humanity.  I wonder if it was a devastating loss just to leave heaven and become human...but he didn't stop there as he embrace his path and his human end, all for the cause of God's people.

Have that same attitude.  The Greek word is phroneo.  It means to be wise and mindful of one's role.  And it means to set one's affections and determinations to direct one's mind and actions toward the right cause, towards God's cause.

To do so based on knowledge and commitment of what God says about us removes us from the whims of the world.  We won't be blown this way and that, but can stay steady, firm on the word we get from God.

Since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe.  He understands because he faced those same tests as we do.  Go to him and find grace to guide and help you when you need it most. Hebrews 4:14-16