#44: Pray The Bible, Meditate With Purpose

This week on Beyond the Pulpit we trace why godliness requires training, not drift, and how grace fuels effort without sliding into legalism. We unpack praying the Bible and meditating on Scripture with clear steps, real barriers, and practical next actions for our church family.

• Godliness as training with present and eternal value 
• The dangers of legalism and antinomianism contrasted 
• Grace that instructs us to deny ungodliness 
• Evidence of the Spirit in making war on the flesh 
• Praying the Bible through the Psalms, step by step 
• Meditation that renews the mind and leads to obedience 
• Simple tools: journaling, discussion, repetition, application 
• Resources by Donald Whitney available at the Welcome Center 

Join us next Tuesday at six thirty for our prayer summit

Transcript

Introducing Dr. Donald Whitney

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Welcome to Beyond the Pulpit, exploring the life and ministry of Walnut Creek Church downtown. Walnut Creek Church exists to glorify God by making authentic disciples of Jesus Christ who love and worship him in all they do. All right, welcome to Beyond the Pulpit. My name is Derek Wadley, and I'm joined here by Lou Cookie. Hey. And Dan Rood. Good morning, everyone. This last weekend, uh, we had our equip conference, which we called uh Spiritual Disciplines for Real People, uh, which everybody that came was a real person and it's a real life human being. So check out as far as we're aware. And so angels are yeah. We may or may not. Uh you know, I think there was a little bit of a discernment about how people don't turn into angels. So um should be a lesser destination for us, but that's not what we're talking about right now. I'm not gonna go down that route. Thank you. Uh so uh but we were joined by Dr. Donald Whitney, who wrote the book on Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian life. Uh the book is called Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life. Um it's currently available at the Welcome Center. Uh, and so if you're you're at church, you can pick up a copy of that. I think you'll find it of tremendous value. Uh I've read it once a year uh for the last 10 years, um, and I get something new out of it each time. And so it's been an incredibly helpful book for me. Um, but yeah, Dr. Whitney is a professor at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, which is you're all alma mater. That's right. That's right, that's right.

SPEAKER_02 1:38

So um come home. We never had any classes with him though, right? Yeah, he came after. Yeah, he came after, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:43

Well, he started the year we finished, I think is what it was or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

The class you would have taken with him if you had already taken.

SPEAKER_04 1:49

Yeah, yeah, that's right. Great.

Train Yourself For Godliness

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Um but yeah, so uh we were it was just a delight to have him here with us and to and to teach on that. Yeah, he was saying that he had done that conference probably over 700 times. Not bad. Uh so that's pretty that's pretty sweet. Um, but I think that one of the questions or conversations that I had getting into that is like, well, we we talk about spiritual disciplines a lot and and and the need for it. And I think, yeah, yeah, we do because they're they're necessary. Uh 1 Timothy 4, starting verse 6, says, if you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of good doctrine that you have followed. Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather, train yourself for godliness. For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

SPEAKER_02 2:45

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

So uh when we talk about the need to practice uh spiritual disciplines, uh, we're really aiming at that promise for this present life and the life to come. Um we don't we don't grow in godliness and neutral, we don't drift towards godliness, but but there's action required. Uh a lot of people, you know, they work out a lot. Um, Dan, you you come and you run like every day. Um, I've seen enough sweaty t-shirts around here to know that that's the case. Uh and so uh it's like that there's value in it.

SPEAKER_02 3:18

I eventually pick them up.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Eventually I pick up sweaty t-shirts.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

We eventually pick them up.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

But they disintegrate, but that's right. Yeah, they just disappear. Uh they irradiate a change.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

But so there but there's value to it. I mean, you see you see the value in running or lifting weights uh for the sake of uh long prolonging your life, but uh there's uh also this whole spiritual aspect of our of our life. And we need to grow in that in our relationship with the Lord. And so the spiritual disciplines really help us to that end. And so that's why I think we were excited to have a conference uh about spiritual disciplines with Dr. Whitney because he has spent really decades uh teaching people uh and practicing these himself. So it wasn't like uh you know some young 20 something who you know recently discovered them who's just stumbled upon them, stumbled upon them. Um but but it was yeah. So it was a great time.

Legalism Versus Antinomianism

SPEAKER_02 4:23

Yeah, it was a great time. And you know, one of one of the key verses that the conference was built on, you you read it, um have nothing to do with pointless and silly myths, rather train yourself in godliness and that word uh train, it's uh it's the Greek word gymnazo. And uh I did a little I did a little study on this one time. Do you guys know what the word gymnazo means? Go to the gym. Train naked.

SPEAKER_04 4:50

That's not what it is.

SPEAKER_02 4:51

It's it it means naked. It's the word for for naked. And I thought, how do you get how do you get naked from gymnaso? Training.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

Oh Lord. Like they're in public. Oh no.

SPEAKER_02 5:05

No, but biblical. It's biblical. No, but that they're actually obeying more than a lot of people. Okay, back to the point, guys. Back to the point. Um the the idea is they had sorry at the point. Gymnasium had gymnasiums in the Greek and Roman world, and people would train naked. And it was the sign, yeah, it was the sign that you were all in on your training. You nothing, uh, nothing's holding you back, like literally nothing. And so you tray you train naked. And when someone runs uh a race, um they typically they're not they're not running with the backpack on or they're not running you know in jeans, even though there is a guy who runs marathons in jeans. But but typically you you just have little amount of clothing as possible. As you need to. And they took it back in the day, they took it you know, one step further. I mean, they're just totally, totally, totally naked. But when Paul says when Paul says rather train yourself in godliness, it's it's the idea that we are to go all out in in our effort to grow in godliness.

SPEAKER_04 6:08

I like how I think it's Kent Hughes that says this or the phrase of uh spiritual sweat. It's like we need to sweat to spiritually. By faith. So labor. Amen. Um the idea of you know, training for the body is limited value. But godliness is beneficial in every way that training is something you know you pursue, you go do. You don't just kind of wake up and you're in shape. You have to like go and actually work hard to build muscle or to gain endurance or build stamina. And the same thing is true with the Christian life. It's like to become godly requires hard work. And it's not work apart from faith or apart from God's grace, but it's understanding that God, you know, He will give us grace uh to do, uh to work hard to become more and more like Christ. And and so uh the Christian life is a life in which we should think about, okay, I need to work hard, I need to sweat.

Grace That Trains Us

Evidence Of The Spirit’s Work

SPEAKER_02 7:01

By the grace of God. By the grace of God. Yeah. Yeah. And I I uh I think one of the big biggest myths in Christianity today is that spiritual maturity is the result of time. It it it it's just the natural thing. Yeah, it's it's just natural that you just naturally become spiritually mature. So if someone is old and they've been a Christian for 40 years, 50 years, 60 years, that that equals spiritual maturity. But you see, in the scriptures, that is not the case. Paul says, I can't speak to you as mature people. I have to speak to you as babes in Christ, as b as babies. Um, you need milk, not solid food. The the Corinthians had stunted their growth and maturity in the Lord or um Hebrews 5 talks about how by this time you ought to be teachers of the word, but instead you need somebody to come and teach you the basics of Christianity because they had stunted their own growth. So as Christians, we can stunt our own gr growth by failing to train. And and the the opposite is also true that you can be young and godly. You can be young and mature. You don't you don't have to be a perpetual baby in the Lord. You can grow strong in the Lord and you can be twenty years old and mature. Uh David says that your word has made me wiser than my teachers. Or uh Timothy, who Paul is writing to young. Don't let anyone look down on you because of your youth. Yep. Yeah, that's exactly right. And so we wanna we wanna train. And um and and I know often there's uh a lot of talk about legalism, and legalism is a real danger to Christianity. It much much of the New Testament was written to deal with the legalism. So Jesus was addressing. Jesus was yeah, so it is a real it is a real threat. There's a counterbalancing, or maybe not a balancing, uh that's probably the wrong word. But there is a there's another extreme. There's another extreme, which is antinomianism. And our culture today is is anti it's the danger that that Christianity is up against in our culture today. Um certainly it is legalism, but the the the bigger danger is antinomianism. And it means antinomian is the idea that because of the work of of Christ on our behalf, we're we're free to sin. We don't need the law. We don't need to obey no law. Like w we don't need that. And and so one of the dangers. Yeah, ch it's cheap grace. And so one of the dangers of um that the gospel faces is antinomianism. It's it's cheap it's cheap grace. It's this idea that we can uh know Christ and walk with him and yet continue in sin, that we just continue to live in sin. And just the idea of Jesus set me free to g so now I can do what I like. I can do it do whatever I want. And you know, C C. He talks about how it's I can't remember the exact illustration, but but it's like um it's he says something like uh it's not virtuous to pass out life jackets when a house is burning down. It's not virtuous to pass out life jackets when the house is burning down. And it's not because life jackets aren't important, it's that in the middle of a house fire, the need of the life jack jacket is not there. It's irrelevant. It's not that that's not the battle that we're fighting right now. The the battle we're fighting is a is a house that's on fire and it needs water. It doesn't need a life jacket. And I think for for most Christians, the danger that they're up against, it's not it's not legalism. I mean, even though there is that is a danger. It is, yeah. But for for most people, it's antinomian attitudes that resists obedience to God, that that doesn't want to place themselves under the the word of God, commit themselves to obeying God. And I think Paul is just telling us not to earn our salvation, but to train ourselves in godliness.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

And it seems like the more dangerous drift is the antinomian drift. Certainly in our culture. Yeah, I just I feel like if I was to to drift toward one, it's like I'd rather drift toward uh the potential for legalism uh because the pursuit of obedience has the greater capacity for good in my life than uh than does saying that nothing matters and that Jesus died. And so no matter what I do, I'm good. Yeah.

unknown 11:40

No?

SPEAKER_01 11:40

I mean, I'd rather not hit the phone. Yeah, let's let's avoid let's avoid both.

Two Core Disciplines Highlighted

SPEAKER_04 11:44

I think I get what you're saying too, because it's you're saying, yeah, the there's still going to be a benefit as you walk with God, even if you're not doing it for the right or you're doing it for the wrong reasons. But as you all you would agree with as well, Jesus uh He cracked the Pharisees more than anybody. More than anyone. So there's a there's a strong warning. And I I think that's why sometimes people actually drift the other way. Exactly. It's because they see uh legalism was so so strongly attacked. Because like why what stops people from uh uh repentance and redemption in Christ? Well, some of that is it's self-righteousness. Certainly. It's I think that I'm I'm better than I actually am.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

Right.

SPEAKER_04 12:24

And so there is a massive danger there. And that's my that's my lean big time, it's towards the legalistic side. And so grateful uh thankfully God has graciously helped me see that uh more and more in my life, but I still find myself So it's like but it's easy, yeah. Then what happens is you can take the that reality and the danger of illegalism, and then you can put it on top of the scriptures and you can say, well, now I shouldn't don't tell me to do anything. Don't tell me to go to church, don't tell me, because that's if you tell me to do something, that's somehow legalistic. And it's I think important, maybe in this discussion quickly, that legalism really is an issue of your heart, the motives for what you're doing. So um one person can be reading their Bible to know God, to love God, to walk with God. Another person can be reading their Bible in hopes that God will see that and have favor on them and save them. And so that's the uh you know a helpful distinction, I think, at least in my bar my brain, like what's the motive? And sometimes we don't know. We should figure it out.

How To Pray The Bible

SPEAKER_02 13:22

Yeah, because yeah, and I think that's a really good point. And because there there aren't legalistic behaviors. That's right. There are only legalistic motives. So like yeah, praying, you can like you said, you can have two people praying and fasting. And fast or fasting or reading the Bible or evangelizing, and you get examples. You get examples in the scriptures of people uh like sharing the like in Philippians chapter one, Paul talks about how some preach Christ out of love. That's right. Others preach Christ out of envy. Right. So it's the same behavior, it's the same behavior preaching Christ, but it comes from a different heart. Or or in Luke 17, you have the two people who go to the temple to pray. You have the uh you have the Pharisee who says, Jesus says, Jesus says that the Pharisee. He prays about himself to God, which is one of the greatest burns of all time. He prays about himself to God. But he says, Oh God, I thank you that you have not made me like this tax collector. And and and so you have two people in the same place praying to God, and one comes from a legalistic heart, the other comes from a humble heart. And so there aren't legalistic behaviors, they're just legalistic hearts.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

And the inverse on the antinomian side is that it's external and against the word of God. I mean the the behaviors that you see from someone who drift towards antinomia. It's it is behavior. Yes. It is uh the you know, the instruction says, you know, you should you should pray, says I don't have to pray. Uh you should you should go to church. I don't have to go to church.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

And in a sense, it's true. In one sense, like it's true. Like I don't have to pray right now in order to be right with God.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

Right.

Community Prayer Invitation

How To Meditate On Scripture

SPEAKER_02 15:04

But but then but then the next step is therefore I do not need to pray. It's like I don't know about that. Yeah, it's yeah, it minimizes sin. Certainly. Certainly. You know, one one verse that uh years years ago, I remember John Crane, he shared this verse with me. JC was my college roommate for a few years. And um he shared this with me. Unofficially, you're right. Unofficially, unofficially, yeah, that's right. Um it says in uh Titus 2 11, he says, For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people. Praise God. Instructing us. What instructs us? The grace of God. The grace of God instructs us to deny godlessness and worldly lusts, and to live in a sensible, righteous, and godly way in the present age, while we wait for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. And so what is what is the evidence of God's grace working in the human heart? It's that it's by the grace of God we are first saved, but then that same grace teaches us to deny godlessness, to deny worldly lusts, to and to live in a sensible, righteous, and godly way in the present age as we wait for for the hope of our salvation. And so grace looks like a person um fighting uh the the lusts of the flesh. You know, Paul says in Romans chapter 8, he says, Um, therefore, dear brothers and sisters, we are not obligated to live according to the flesh, because if we live according to the flesh, we're going to die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For he says, for all those led by God's Spirit are God's sons. And so, what does it look like to be led by God's Spirit? Uh, what does it look like when the grace of God put to death comes into our lives by the power of God's Holy Spirit? It's that we make war against the flesh. And so the evidence of God's grace is not the it's not the the hippie. Um it's not the it's not the hippie with the guitar, you know, just singing, you know, songs of happiness, smoking, smoking that weed, you know, that like that's not the evidence of God's grace. The evidence of God's grace is that it's a it's a man or a woman who glories in the in the salvation that we've been given by God and who makes by the power of God's Spirit makes war against the flesh that we might live righteously under God. That's this that's the grace of God.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

Yeah, and that word sensible, uh, it's it's not just like uh a well-ordered thought life. It is like another word. It's that's it's not less than that. Yeah. But the the the word can also be translated as self-controlled, which is in and of itself like a discipline that's needed. It is a requirement that sensibility requires like not just thinking the right things, but doing the right things given that you're thinking the right way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:13

Yeah. And that's the evidence of God's grace. It's evidence of God's grace.

SPEAKER_04 18:16

Yeah. I mean, even Paul, when you continue in First Timothy 4 here, he says, this saying is trustworthy and deserves full acceptance. For this reason, we labor and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the savior of all people, especially those who believe. So why do we labor and strive? Well, because our hope is in the living God. He has saved all who believe. And so uh to be a Christian is to make war with the flesh, to be a Christian is to work hard uh to become godly. And we all understand that that is by the grace of God. It's the Spirit of God who is in us, who is moving and uh pushing us, desiring on our behalf toward yeah, toward godliness. Amen. Amen. I mean, I think if you have the spirit of God, you should feel a tension in your soul and you should feel a yearning and a desire to become more like Christ. Uh and if that's not there, that should be a concern. Yeah. Or if we act like it's not a big deal to pursue sin, or I don't, you know, we minimize godliness in some way or pursuing that. That's there's a problem there.

unknown 19:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Yeah. And we spent a lot of time this weekend on just two primarily. There's uh 13 or 14 disciplines laid out and in the book that he gives, but we we've really spent our time on two, and those were praying the Bible and meditating on scripture. And so we spent Friday night talking through, not just talking about it, but and learning. But we we got to spend some time doing it. That was incredible. That was an incredible time. Um so Dee, what were your thoughts about Friday night?

Meditation As Path To Obedience

SPEAKER_02 19:45

Yeah, press yeah. So uh Dr. Whitney starts off by saying we're gonna talk about the two most important spiritual disciplines. And I I thought that was helpful because there are many spiritual disciplines, many important spiritual disciplines, but he he kept uh talking about how there are two that are that stand above them all. And I think I would agree with that. I think we would agree with this. And they really feed into the Yeah, they're they're they're at the foundation of all the other disciplines, namely praying. And he says praying the scriptures, and then also meditating on the scriptures. And so I thought I thought that was really, really a powerful time that Friday night. I thought it was a powerful time because he described he he he he described the problem that I think all of us experience, which is that it's hard to stay focused in prayer. Prayer can be boring, prayer it feels like mindless repetition, um, not praying makes you feel like a second-rate Christian. And so he made the case from the scriptures um that we should pray the Bible, that Jesus prayed the Bible, Paul prayed the Bible, like the the Bible isn't is teaching us how to pray. God has given us the Psalms um that we might pray them and sing them back to Him. And I thought that was a really good case. And uh this is for some of us uh not new thoughts, you know, those are not new thoughts, and that's been part of the practice. I I know I'm uh with a lot of us is just praying through the Bible, but I thought he made the case so well that in a compelling way to a lot of people. I think there are nearly 400 people or maybe 400 people there. And I thought that's that is awesome. It is it is awesome. I mean, what a case to make. That people should pray the scriptures, and then we had the opportunity to pray the scriptures. And so um I thought I thought that would that might have been the biggest takeaway of the conference, at least at least for me. I thought that that is it's such a a wonderful thing. And so I thought maybe I would just quickly walk through it might be good to just quickly walk through some of the key points, which he just talks about starting in the psalms. Like so when you think about praying, um we should we should think about the psalms. Which we did, it was kind of funny. I don't I don't I don't remember when we did this. When did we teach through the psalms? When did we teach you the psalms? Yeah. Uh I mean that was Years ago.

SPEAKER_04 22:12

Years ago, but we talked it's like 2017 maybe.

SPEAKER_02 22:14

Yeah, that was inspired by uh Donald Whitney's praying the scriptures. Like that was so that was a long time ago.

SPEAKER_04 22:21

So Donald Whitney, he's been going through the Psalms on Wednesday nights.

Resources And Next Steps

SPEAKER_02 22:24

And then we can go through the Psalms on Wednesday nights, yeah. So so this I hope this isn't a new concept, but uh when we think about prayer, we should we should think it there's a it's totally appropriate as you're driving to pray. Pray all all always. You know, we should pray all the time. But when we think about our our continuously formal time of prayer, um we should think about opening our Bibles to the Psalms and just praying through the Psalms. And he he says, I thought this was really good instruction, that um you you open up the Psalms, he went through Psalm 23, and you just pray, you just read one verse, the Lord is my shepherd, I have what I need. And then that that becomes the basis of your prayer. And so you thank God for being the shepherd of our souls, you thank you thank God for uh meeting all of our needs, you th you thank God for um uh disciplining us and coming after us. Um we were once goats and now we we're sheep.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

Nice and dark has a goat on his hat right now.

SPEAKER_02 23:34

And yeah, just thanking God for being our shepherd, and then you know, praying that you know the good shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep would um you know save our kids and save our friends and family members who don't know Christ, and and then you pray through that shepherdess today, shepherdess today. Yeah, and then you go to verse two. He leads me beside or he lets me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, and you just pray through that verse, and then you pray through the next, and you pray through the next. And I I I think that I think that is extremely helpful um that we think about praying the scriptures. And I think on November 4th, yeah, so it's a week from today. Today's Tuesday, uh October 28th. 28th. 28th. So so one week from today, we're gonna be having a prayer meeting. What time is that prayer meeting?

SPEAKER_01 24:29

6 30.

SPEAKER_02 24:29

6 30. 6 30. Is it 6 30 to midnight?

SPEAKER_01 24:32

6 30 to 2 a.m. Actually, 6 30 to 8.

SPEAKER_02 24:36

All night or yeah, so it's just a time of it's gonna be a time of prayer.

SPEAKER_01 24:39

So actually pray without ceasing.

SPEAKER_02 24:41

If you if you if you are part of Walnut Creek Church, our encouragement is that you would prioritize that time, that you would come. The church is gonna gather. We're gonna pray. Hopefully, we can implement some of these principles.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

We're encouraging, even reorienting the community group schedule around gathering together to pray that night.

SPEAKER_02 25:00

Yeah, yeah. So our encouragement, our encouragement, pastoral encouragement to the the flock of Allnut Creek Church is that you would pray the scriptures and that you would come on November 4th. So that was discipline number one, discipline number two. What was it, Dick?

SPEAKER_04 25:14

Yeah, meditating the Bible on the Bible. And so obviously the theme here, the Bible. Praying the Bible, meditating on the Bible, and um a couple of verses, one one in Joshua 1.8, I think that's such a helpful thought is this book of instruction must not depart from your mouth. You are to meditate on it day and night. And uh so Joshua and other parts of the scriptures, Psalm 1, for instance, are given this instruction not just to read the Bible, uh, not just to uh even memorize the Bible, but to actually meditate on the scriptures. And to meditate is to, you know, uh let your mind really sit in and steep over and think through and ponder the word of God. And um Dr. Winnie, he gave uh what was like 17 surveys to meditate.

SPEAKER_02 26:00

He's like, I got 12 more.

SPEAKER_04 26:02

Yeah, I was like, all right, all right. You can draw pictures, yeah, yeah. So for me, um the helpful, kind of the most helpful thing I've done just in to meditate on God's word. Honestly, just praying through it is a helpful way to meditate on God's word. Oh yeah. Um, but is to write my thoughts down. And um, I don't do that all the time, but uh a lot I'll just write down some thoughts about a verse or a passage and try to kind of like really dig into what is it saying. And I think oftentimes people can get in the habit of like they read a passage or they read a chapter and they just kind of shut their Bibles and they're done. But I think the Word of God calls us to be more than just readers, but to actually um uh uh consume God's word. And an illustration that's been helpful, I think this one comes from Kent Hughes also, not on Whitney. I I can't remember, I'm confused, but is uh if you think about a teabag, you take a teabag and you put it in water and you let the teabag steep there for you know ten minutes or so, it's like what happens when the contents of the teabag come out into the water, they permeate the water, and that's the idea of what we want to do with God's word. Meditating in God's word is that it would permeate into our life, our souls, our heart, and why? Well, he says, here's what David uh or uh uh Joshua's told. He says, so that you may carefully observe everything written in it. So how do you carefully observe or how do you obey God's word? Well, it comes back to meditating on God's word. And then he says, For then you will prosper and succeed in whatever you do. And and uh Psalm 1 is also the same idea. The one who meditates on God's word, he's like a tree planted by streams of water bearing fruit in season whose leaf leaves never wither. And the idea is that if we want to uh experience the blessing of God in our life, we need to walk in obedience to God. But how do we walk in obedience to God? Well, we need to meditate on the word of God. As we meditate on the word of God, his word fills our heart and it and our soul and our mind and it moves us towards uh uh obedience to Christ. And you know, Paul, Romans 12 says, Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed through the renewing of your mind. And our minds are going to be renewed uh through the uh the word, which means we need to actually pursue uh in taking in the Bible, as I think Don Whitney would put it, meditating on God's word. So meditation I think is really key uh to becoming a person who is actually uh obeying Christ and thus experiencing the blessings that God's uh word uh uh and obedience offers, offers us. And so there's a lot of ways, yeah, he goes into meditating, but for me it's just been helpful to like write it down. Or I think to some degree meditating is just talking about it with other people. I mean, just sitting like dialoguing about the scriptures. We don't think of it as meditation, but we think of meditation like I get into a room by myself and I'm like sitting here quietly. And and that can very much be the case if you're you know writing down God's word, but it's also just it's talking about God's word uh with your spouse or with your kids, or you know, getting up and grabbing coffee with someone in the morning and and sitting there and and talking through the word of God is a such a helpful way to like meditate on the scriptures. Um and so I I was very thankful for for uh uh just what Don had to share, um, particularly in those two things. And they they work together. Certainly. They're not they're not mutually exclusive.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

They're working together. They help lay that foundation to do the other disciplines in a much more meaningful way.

SPEAKER_04 29:36

In fact, that's the way I think I've memorized a lot of verses over the years. You know, people are like this is fine. I've done this too, where you you know, you write verses on note cards or something. A lot of the ways I've memorized verses is just by meditating on it. Yeah. Like that's probably the primary way.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

The longer you think about something, the more you're gonna remember it.

SPEAKER_04 29:51

Rereading it, sharing it, certainly. Like just going through it, praying through it. It's obeying it. Yeah, the point is to to obey it. So it's not just to know it. Um I think we should connect in our brain meditation on God's Word. It's what's going to help me to walk in obedience to God's word, which will help me experience the blessing that is found in God's Word.

SPEAKER_01 30:17

Yeah. And while there's no substitute for like being together and learning, learning all of that, there was something so valuable about Friday night just sitting with, you know, 399 of your closest friends, uh praying the Bible together, um, or on Saturday morning, like meditating on a passage of scripture for a few minutes. Um, we do the messages are actively being posted. So the conference is is going up. So if you weren't able to be there, we would encourage you to check it out. Check it out. Uh and not just listen to it, but um implement some of these things, especially as it comes to praying the Bible and meditating.

SPEAKER_04 30:56

And we also have we have praying the Bible at the Welcome Center.

SPEAKER_01 30:58

We have praying the Bible, we have the Spiritual Disciplines book, we have Family Worship, which helps to narrow it narrow it down into the family context. So yeah, we want to make those resources available to you. And again, join us next Tuesday uh at six thirty for for our prayer summit.