Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Spiritual Peace 3 Seeking God



I have learned a lot about ways to encounter the Holy Spirit over the past few years. Frankly, I never really heard much about prayer and meditation in my youth. The only time prayer was mentioned was "The Sinner's Prayer". 

What a total disaster it was to be ignorant of encountering the Holy Spirit. The emphasis on evangelism is usually great but then we dropped from the radar screen. We are essentially told to live by our own will and ability without the anointing of the Spirit, even though Jesus said, "Without me you can do nothing." 

I am not sure why many Ministers are so poor at teaching and disciple-making. It is basic to the Bible and the Christian life. Maybe because we are obsessed with talking heads. We who came to Christ are to live holy lives on our own. How is that working for you?

Anyway, I have tried to learn how to Seek God in prayer and meditation. When I first started to teach about about it several men attacked me for being a Buddhist! If I am so was Paul!

Meditation is biblical and essential to Seeking God. I am more of a Puritan than a Buddhist! Here are thoughts from the Puritans.


Puritans and Meditation

The scholar Puritan E. Calamy took time to address the need for meditation in the lives of young gentlemen, kings, nobles, great persons, soldiers, generals, captains, learned men, scholars, and women. Other Puritans have stressed meditation's particular usefulness to ministers; this was a typical thought due to its usefulness to many specific functions within this vocation. 

As scholar Tom Webster notes, John Rogers stressed: 'To preach painfully, what preparation is required hereto? What Reading, Meditation, Prayer, Labor of the mind?”

Thomas Taylor said, “To preach effectively, the minister 'must by Study, Prayer and Meditation store himself with things new and old, for a vessel must receive in before power out'."

Yet, primarily, the focus on application of meditation was on the continuing sanctification of each individual

Indeed, Puritan John Ball calls application "the life of Meditation." He relates application closely to the affective aspects of this discipline; he would have been aware of the Scriptural teaching to diligently keep the heart, for from it spring all the issues of life.
             
It is not a slight thought of the mercies of God which will affect your hearts, but it must be a dwelling on them by meditation. -E. Calamy

We might say that both the Puritans and the Catholics knew how to Seek God.

See my book, Power Christian Thinking for more insights about Renewing the Mind.

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