Featured Projects

  • Read the Bible Aloud

    Some of the most fun I've had in my Bible study time has been sustained periods of shouting God's Word aloud. Throughout Scripture God calls His people to response and action, and often a spoken word is the simplest form of response. Putting God's Word in your mouth and ears may be the most effective way of placing it within your heart.

  • Moleskine Notebook Bible

    Create an interleaved Bible by pasting alternating pages from old abused paperback editions into a large plain notebook. With a little ingenuity and some old Bibles and some household items you can have a study tool similar to Jonathan Edward's blank Bible.

  • Creating Cross References

    One of the most common ways to take notes in your Bible is to create your own cross-references in the margins, linking verses that interpret and illuminate each other. Often the process and order of creating these cross references leads to new revelation as topics connect and diverge, one theme leads to another and the relationship between topics in the Word often brings light.

  • Newsletters

    My monthly newsletter articles feature the fruits of study and obedience to fulfill God's call as an urban missionary in the Metro Detroit area. The newsletter posts feature the opening article and a link to the full newsletter and to old newsletters. The articles focus on discovering intimacy and passion on the urban mission field and in Muslim Ministry.

  • Christ's Commands: Amplified Bible

    This highlighting project didn't start out with a complex color scheme, but grew from the desire to focus on a single subject. Jesus makes an unequivocal statement in John 14:15 that constantly challenged me as a young believer and continues to stir me and burn me today: "If you love me you will keep my commandments."p>

  • Homemade KJV Looseleaf

    printkjv.ifbweb.com offers free Microsoft word and Plain Text files of the entire KJV. This means that the text block can reformatted and printed it any way. It also features the books of the Bible in individual documents so you can print an individual book to look at. Perhaps the most obvious use of this resource is the creation of an interleaf Bible.p>

Friday, May 20, 2011

Watchman Nee on Meditation

Both Joshua 1:8 and Psalm 1:2 tell us that we have to meditate and dwell on the word of the Lord all the time. At ordinary times (i.e., other than the times when we are reading the Bible), we should meditate on the Lord's Word. We should learn to mold our thoughts according to the thoughts of the Bible. We should be meditating whether or not we are reading the Word. Romans 8:6 speaks of the "mind set on the spirit." This means that we should think on the spirit, and fix it on the spirit. This verse does not mean that we should set our mind on the spirit only, but that we should have a mind of the spirit. We should not just concentrate on the spirit, but should have a concentration that is of the spirit. In other words, whenever our mind turns, it should always turn to God's Word. No matter what the circumstances may be, our mind should always be fixed on God's Word. This is a matter not of artificial reminding but of spontaneous meditating. Ordinarily, our mind should be a mind that is set on the Word. Our mind should not be set on the Bible only when we are thinking about the Bible; it should be on the Bible even when we are not thinking about it. We should be inclined toward God's Word in a spontaneous way.
There are two sides to our meditation. On the one hand, we meditate when we read the Bible. On the other hand, we meditate at all times. When we are reading the Bible, our mind should be meditating on God's Word. But when we are not reading the Bible, we should also be actively exercising ourselves with our trained mind. It is not a matter of forcing ourselves to think about the Scriptures. The Holy Spirit will direct our thoughts in this direction, and it will become part of our habit. Once we develop such a habit, we will spontaneously become rich in the Lord. (Watchman Nee, How to Study the Bible p.86-87)

Watchman Nee presents an alternative side to meditation, one that does not demand intense concentration or patience or internal stirring, but an identity in the Word and the continuing process of the Holy Spirit renewing our mind and establishing us in the mind of Christ. In a world of quick hits and many distractions, it is comforting to know that the Holy Spirit is more energetic than the things around us vying for our attention. He aggressively and vivaciously plants scripture within our thoughts and heart. When we read and study, the Word is planted within us. The Holy Spirit sets it bubbling up within our mind and heart, creating a different king of meditation: a mind of the Spirit. I once heard a preacher say, just let your mind wander, wherever it goes, that's where your heart is. This also is meditation: a mind that wanders back to the Word.

Posted by Jonathan Ammon at 12:06 PM
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