The fact that both the Bible and the eastern religions of Buddhism and Hinduism speak of “meditation” as a spiritual practice has led some within Christianity to feel they can adopt an Eastern practice of meditation to help them grow in their spiritual life; they may feel it complements the kind of meditation spoken of in the Bible. This is probably more common in certain parts of the Roman church, but, as I was reminded recently, even Bible-believing Christians may have such a thought.

In reality, however, the meditation of the Eastern religions is the antithesis of that found in the Bible, and those who practice it will inevitably be led away from God and into a realm of spiritual darkness.

To understand this, however, we first need to see what the Bible means when it speaks of “meditating” upon God, upon His works, and upon His word. And to understand this we must, in turn, understand how He created us, and why He created us as He did.

In brief, God made us in His own image and likeness (Gen. 1:26-27), so that we would become His expression. That is, He created us as three-part beings, spirit and soul and body (1 Thess. 5:23), with a mind, emotion, and will, so that He Himself could live through us, just as He did in the person of Christ.

So, God’s desire for us is that we use these faculties He has given us to contact Him and receive His divine life. In this way He Himself will be expressed through us as we use our mind, emotion, and will; it is still us, but now it is also God in Christ living through us (Gal. 2:20, Col. 1:27). This is in fact what the New Testament speaks of as “transformation” (Rom. 12:2, 2 Cor. 3:18).

The exercise of our entire person in our relationship with God is just what we saw in our most recent series of Notes, “Loving God with Our Whole Being” (Part 1 & Part 2). The Lord, quoting the Old Testament, tells us,

“You shall love the Lord your God
From all your heart
And from all your soul
And from all your mind
And from all your strength.”
— Mark 12:29-30; cf. Matthew 22:37, Luke 10:27, Deuteronomy 6:5, 10:12, 30:6

So, according to the Lord, if we are to love God, we cannot be at all passive; every part of our being must be exercised in this regard.

And that is what we see in those cases in the Old Testament when God tells us to meditate upon the law, or when the psalmists speak of how they would meditate upon God and His word. In each case, this meditation, rather than being passive, involves a very active exercise of our God-given faculties.

And that is what we shall consider in the next Note in this series.

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—  4 January 2025 —