III. Proving Meditation to be a DUTY.
Meditation is a duty lying upon every Christian, and there is no disputing our duty. Meditation is a duty, 1. Imposed. 2. Opposed.
1. Meditation is a duty imposed—it is not arbitrary. The same God who has bid us believe, has bid us meditate, Josh. 1:8. "This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth—but you shall meditate therein day and night." These words, though spoken to the person of Joshua, yet they concern everyone; as the promise made to Joshua concerned all believers, Josh. 1:5 compared with Heb. 13:5. So this precept made to the person of Joshua, you shall meditate in this book of the law, takes in all Christians. As God's Word does direct, so his will must enforce obedience.
2. Meditation is a duty opposed. We may conclude it is a good duty, because it is against the stream of corrupt nature. As one said, "you may know that religion is right—which Nero persecutes;" so you may know that is a good duty—which the heart opposes. We shall find naturally a strange averseness from meditation. We are swift to hear—but slow to meditate. To think of the world, if it were all day long, is delightful. But as for holy meditation, how does the heart wrangle and quarrel with this duty; it is like doing of penance. Now truly, there needs no other reason to prove a duty to be good, than the reluctancy of a carnal heart. To instance in the duty of "Let a man deny himself," Mat. 16:24, self-denial is as necessary as heaven—but what disputes are raised in the heart against it? What! to deny my reason, and become a fool that I may be wise; nay, not only to deny my reason—but my righteousness? What, to cast it overboard, and swim to heaven upon the plank of Christ's merits? This is such a duty that the heart does naturally oppose, and enter its dissent against. This is an argument to prove the duty of self-denial good; just so it is with this duty of meditation; the secret antipathy the heart has against it, shows it to be good; and this is reason enough to enforce meditation.
- Thomas Watson
February 18, 2009
Meditation by Thomas Watson
It has been a little difficult to do much lately, but by God's grace I can't stop meditating on His Word, so here's is an excellent quote from Thomas Watson that I saved a while back when I read it somewhere from Grace Gems:
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3 comments:
Hey, I did a brief post on meditation just a little while ago so I was excited to read these words of Thomas Watson's!
"We shall find naturally a strange averseness from meditation. We are swift to hear—but slow to meditate."
That is true, but the more we take the time to meditate on Scripture the more our appetite grows for it - some days it seems I can't get enough of diving deeply into God's Word!
Stephanie,
Hey, that's great how your appetite for meditation on the Bible has grown! How about your appetite for communion with Christ and fellowship with God the Father, Son and Spirit? I know for me, I need to pray often that my heart will be directed toward His love. God bless.
It kind of fits together for me - when I'm much in the Word, I hunger for it more, which is really because I hunger more for fellowship with God, and that's heightened through being in the word...but the more I grow, the more I see how small my love for Christ is, compared what I desire it to be. At times that can be discouraging, but how neat is it that we can ask for more love, and that our Sovereign Lord can direct our hearts!
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