Psalm 119:99 I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my mediation.
Winston Churchill once wrote something to the essence of, “We live in the most thoughtless of times. Every day there are more headlines and short views.” I can only imagine what he would think about our day with all our technology and distractions. We are too preoccupied to live, let alone think.
Here at the Ranch we have CAMP. It is a Controlled Atmosphere for the Ministry of Preaching. We put aside many of the distractions that typify our lives, at least for this one week, so we can focus on God’s Word and things eternal. That is wonderful because God’s Word is the answer to our thoughtlessness and our inability to think well and right about things that matter. God’s Word gives power for life.
If you look in Psalm 119, you discover that meditation is the Bible’s ethic for the Bible. Psalm 119:99 says, “I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my mediation.” If you circle all the times you find the words “meditate” and “quicken” in Psalm 119, you will have many circles indeed. That is because there is a connection here; there is a flow. There is meditation, understanding, and then quickening or reviving. The answer for a dead brain and a dead life or a life that is so busy that we can’t even live is to mediate, understand, and let the Bible do its reviving work.
I would like to challenge you to do two things today. Think on God’s Word and then pass it on. In Nehemiah 8, a people who had turned their backs on God had returned to their land and they needed to return to God. The Bible says that the Levites caused the people to understand the law. “The people stood in their place,” then the Levites “read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading.”
That is the essence of all of Nehemiah 8. They gathered all the people that could hear with understanding, those people were attentive, and Ezra the scribe and others read so they could understand the words of the law. We are saying that when you think on the Bible, you can then pass it on. The answer for young people and their lack of guidance and direction, the answer for old people and their lack of hope and perspective is the Word of God, God’s timeless truth for our day.
God’s Word gives power for life. Think on it, understand it, obey it, and let it revive you.