Have you already made your Thanksgiving plans? I hope you and your family will be gathering to spend some good holiday time together.
I also hope you’re planning to serve this Thanksgiving. For the last couple of years, Gilmer County churches have come together to serve a free Thanksgiving dinner to anyone and everyone in the community. It has been great to be For Gilmer in this way!
As you know, we are in our full-on SERVE season, which begins in the summer with Seamless Summer, among other things. Here are the remaining things we’ll be doing for our community this year:
Halloween Outreach
October 31, downtown
Hope Tree
November / December
Light Up Ellijay
November 29, downtown
Community Christmas Eve Service
December 24, Ellijay Elementary School
Hearing God Whisper through His Word
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
2 Timothy 3:16
What imagery comes to mind when you read “breathed out by God?”
The NASB and NLT both translate this as “All Scripture is inspired by God.” The ESV says “All Scripture is breathed out.”
The Greek compound word here is “theopneustos,”
Theo, meaning God, and pneustos, from pneuma, meaning “breath, or spirit.”
Obviously, “inspired” and “breathed out” carry two very different ideas. How would you contrast the two? How do they have different meanings for you?
Study this Book of Instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do.
-God, Joshua 1:8
Much has been made about meditation lately… There are now dozens of apps you can get on your mobile device to help you learn and practice meditation. It turns out science has established a clear link between meditation and physical/emotional health. Funny how science is still catching up, isn’t it?
Interestingly, however, popular (Bhuddist and Trancendental) types of meditation are all about disengaging, silencing, or emptying your mind. Not so with Biblical meditation. The Scripture teaches us to actively engage the mind for the purpose of understanding God’s Word and putting it into practice. Huge difference!
Think of it this way… On October 15, Nasa completed it’s first-ever all-female spacewalk. Astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir spent seven hours and 17 minutes outside the International Space Station during a spacewalk, carrying out their primary task of replacing a battery charge/discharge unit (BCDU) on one end of the station’s truss.
The astronauts’ spacesuits are designed to provide oxygen for up to 8.5 hours. During that amount of time, an astronaut will require approximately .30kg of oxygen.
WHAT IF their spacesuits were not designed to provide oxygen during those seven hours? What if astronauts had to just inhale an extra .30kg of oxygen before opening the airlock, and just hold their breath inside their suits for up to 8.5 hours?
Of course, that is ridiculous. Humans don’t work that way… They have to breathe… Approximately 8,160 times during 8.5 hours.
Knowing this, and knowing that the Word is God’s very breath… His pneuma… Do you think it is responsible of us to inhale a week’s worth on Sunday, and expect it to sustain us for seven days?
So, how do we continually inhale the whisper of God? How do we let it do it’s work in our lives? How can we meditate?
I will study your commandments and reflect on your ways. I will delight in your decrees and not forget your word.
Psalm 119:15
Eastern forms of meditation stress the need to become detached from the world. The goal is to lose your own personhood and individuality, merging with some “cosmic mind.” The idea is to gain relief from attachment to this world, it’s suffering and pain.
Biblical meditation is different. It is all about becoming detached from the controlling and hindering influences of the world and attached to the living God through Christ that we might, through faith experience the sufficiency of the Savior and reach out to a hurting world in need of Jesus!
Here are four practical tips for meditating on God’s Word:
1. Carve out a specific time and place each day when you are least likely to be interrupted or distracted to get alone and meditate on God’s Word.
2. Start with prayer and ask God to help you with your meditation. You can ask the Lord to draw you closer to Him, open your eyes to His truth, help you apply that truth in your life, and transform you as you meditate on God’s Word.
3. Choose a small section of Scripture. Think about what the passage means. Study it in depth so that you can understand it in context. Take notes. Ask questions. Memorize the passage. Ask God what He wants to say to you through the text.
4. Consider how you can apply the passage to your life in practical ways, and ask God to help you follow through in obedience to what He shows you.
I have recommended your life group leader to have a look at this very thorough article about Biblical meditation. Have a look at it. How can you practice breathing him in this week?