State College, PA
A few weeks ago I was having coffee with a friend. He has schizophrenia and was on my caseload when I worked in the mental health field, but I always scheduled him for Friday afternoons, because meeting with him ended my week on a positive note, even when he wasn’t doing that well. More than anyone I’ve known, he has learned to manage his mental illness. He’s brilliant and I love talking to him about ideas and things we’ve both read. I enjoy spending time with him, which is why we were having coffee even though meeting with him is no longer part of my job.
He is having some health problems and was scheduled for major surgery in a few weeks, so he asked me, very pointedly, some questions about prayer, especially how to pray. So I made a few general comments and then talked to him at some length about a way of prayer called Lectio Divina, which is just Latin for Divine Reading. I’ll say more about this later in the sermon; he seemed very encouraged by the suggestion and we parted ways. But when I left I realized that I have not been practicing this form of prayer I recommended to him. Admittedly we can’t all do everything all the time, but this is really one of my favorite ways of praying, and I had not been doing it for some time. It had just gotten away from me, crowded out by other things. So, since that day I’ve been practicing this way of prayer nearly every day. I offered this suggestion as a help to him, but it has ended up helping me. It may have helped me more than it helped him. That’s the way it is when Christians talk to each other, and this is one of the reasons I dislike the image of ministers as religious professionals who run churches, who are somehow disconnected from the community of faith.
The passage we’re looking at this morning gives us a picture of disciplined spiritual growth, whether we are church members or those who are involved in vocational ministry. Whichever category we belong to, as long as we are living in this fallen world, we need to hold firmly to two opposite truths. On the one hand, the Church is highly exalted in union with Jesus Christ. In Him we have every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms, and we are seated with Him at the right hand of God. This is a prominent theme in the New Testament and it‘s one of the things I‘ve been meditating on recently in my prayerful reading of Scripture. For example, Paul urges the Colossian Christians, “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:1-3). The Church is in union with Jesus Christ, and our true home is in heaven with Him. But, at the same time, we’re still living in this world which is continuing in rebellion against Him, this world that is dominated by spiritual forces of evil. We’re engaged in spiritual warfare, whether we like it or not. We’re living in a war zone and can’t escape from the conflict, no matter what we do. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12). We’re living in a world that is dominated by powers intent on destroying us.
Most of our enemy’s attacks are subtle, and if we’re not alert we won’t recognize them as attacks at all. The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis, is full of insights in this area. It’s a series of letters from Screwtape, a senior demon, to his nephew, Wormwood, advising him on how to destroy the life of God in his victim. In one of the letters, the human victim has just experienced spiritual renewal and repentance. Here’s what Screwtape says about it: “The great thing is to prevent his doing anything. As long as he does not convert it into action, it does not matter how much he thinks about this new repentance. Let the little brute wallow in it. Let him, if he has any bent that way, write a book about it; that is often an excellent way of sterilising the seeds which the Enemy plants in a human soul. Let him do anything but act. No amount of piety in his imagination and affections will harm us if we can keep it out of his will. As one of the humans has said, active habits are strengthened by repetition but passive ones are weakened. The more often he feels without acting, the less he will be able ever to act, and, in the long run, the less he will be able to feel” (pp. 60-61). As long as he doesn’t do anything, as long as he doesn’t follow up on it, the “little brute” can wallow in his repentance all he likes and Screwtape will be pleased. As long as he doesn’t act on it, his repentance is imaginary, because true repentance involves a change of direction, turning around and going the other way.
In the fourth century, a monk named John Cassian compiled a list of 8 sins that are especially dangerous, to help his fellow monks in examining themselves. Two centuries later, Pope Gregory the Great reduced the number to 7 (what we now call Gregorian Chant is named after him). Here’s the list: pride, envy, anger, sloth, greed, lust and gluttony (David L. Hall, The Seven Deadly Sins, pp. 12-13). It’s not that these seven deadly sins are the only ones to worry about. But they describe conditions of the heart which lead to all sorts of other sins. That’s why they’re deadly; they lead us on a steady course away from obedience to God.
The one I’m interested in this morning is sloth. The sin of sloth is what Screwtape is talking about when he says: “Let him do anything but act. No amount of piety in his imagination and affections will harm us if we can keep it out of his will.” This isn’t the same thing as what we call laziness. Here’s a definition of sloth: “The root of sloth and that which makes it sinful lies in the will. Sloth is an infectious evil that poisons the will so that there is no motivation – no passion – to act. Sloth is the cause of the self being overly protective of one’s time and energy.... Sloth persuades the will to make no effort... expend no energy. Sloth says, ‘It’s not worth it.’ Sloth makes that which is of ultimate importance seem not worth the effort” (David Hall, p. 57). Sloth destroys our motivation to do that which is most essential. We may be workaholics, but we’re guilty of sloth if we’re using work to escape from other things God wants us to do. Sloth prevents us from acting in response to God’s call in our lives. We may go through periods where we feel bad about our negligence; maybe we go forward in a meeting from time to time and ask for prayer. But we never act on it, and year after year we find ourselves going nowhere spiritually. The longer we allow this pattern to continue, the more difficult it is to break. “Sloth is an infectious evil that poisons the will so that there is no motivation – no passion – to act.”
In the passage we’re looking at today, Paul urges Timothy to diligently train himself in godly living. He doesn’t want sloth to prevent Timothy from going forward spiritually. Listen to verses 7-10 in The Message: “Exercise daily in God – no spiritual flabbiness, please! Workouts in the gymnasium are useful, but a disciplined life in God is far more so, making you fit both today and forever. You can count on this. Take it to heart. This is why we’ve thrown ourselves into this venture so totally. We’re banking on the living God....” Paul wants Timothy to approach his spiritual life like an athlete in training, giving himself to the routine of daily exercise.
The first thing we can see in this passage is that discipline in our spiritual lives is absolutely necessary if we want to survive in this spiritual war zone. The central idea in this passage is in the second half of verse 7: “train yourself to be godly.” Timothy was ministering in a difficult place. The spiritual life of the church was being undermined by false teachers, and his job was to deal with the situation. We can see this in Paul’s words at the beginning of this letter: “On my way to the province of Macedonia, I advised you to stay in Ephesus. Well, I haven’t changed my mind. Stay right there on top of things so that the teaching stays on track. Apparently some people have been introducing fantasy stories and fanciful family trees that digress into silliness instead of pulling the people back into the center, deepening faith and obedience. The whole point of what we’re urging is simply love – love uncontaminated by self-interest and counterfeit faith, a life open to God. Those who fail to keep to this point soon wander off into cul-de-sacs of gossip. They set themselves up as experts on religious issues, but haven’t the remotest idea of what they’re holding forth with such imposing eloquence.” The way to guard against the snares the enemy sends our way is to be diligent in spiritual discipline, to be diligently training ourselves in godliness.
If we don’t exercise diligence in our spiritual lives, we’re opening ourselves up to the attacks and delusions of the enemy. This shouldn’t surprise us. One of the effects of the Fall is that things tend to deteriorate when we leave them alone. What happens to your garden if you don’t carefully cultivate and tend it? It grows weeds, which choke out the things you’re trying to grow. And the same is true in our spiritual lives. If we neglect them, they’ll grow weeds which will choke out the life of the Spirit.
The word Paul uses in verse 7 means to exercise, or train. The word is gymnazo, which our word gymnasium is taken from. The author of Hebrews uses the same word in chapter 5 of his letter. The Hebrew Christians are on the verge of turning away from the gospel. They’ve been enduring persecution and difficulties, but now they’re ready to throw in the towel in the hopes of getting some relief. In chapter 5, the author rebukes them for their lack of maturity: “We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil” (5:11-14). They’re in trouble and are on the verge of turning away, because they haven’t exercised themselves, trained themselves to be godly. They’re in a perpetual state of spiritual immaturity. If they had been exercising diligence, they’d be mature by now and would have the spiritual resources to get through the crisis.
The word translated “strive,” in verse 10, is one that’s often used of an athletic contest. Paul uses a form of this work to describe athletes as those who strive in the games. “You’ve all been to the stadium and seen the athletes race. Everyone runs; one wins. Run to win. All good athletes train hard. They do it for a gold medal that tarnishes and fades. You’re after one that’s gold eternally. I don’t know about you, but I’m running hard for the finish line. I’m giving it everything I’ve got. No sloppy living for me! I’m staying alert and in top condition. I’m not going to get caught napping, telling everyone else about it and then missing out myself” (1 Corinthians 10, The Message). Paul’s motivation is that he wants to survive over the long term. He doesn’t want to get derailed by any of the enemy’s snares. He doesn’t want, in the midst of preaching to others, to lose the race himself. So he diligently trains himself for godliness, knowing that if he doesn’t do that, he won’t survive.
Godly discipline is profitable, because it enables us to live more and more in the way we were created to live. The false teachings that were being spread in Ephesus were producing pretty disagreeable people. Listen to Paul’s description in chapter 6: “These are the things I want you to teach and preach. If you have leaders there who teach otherwise, who refuse the solid words of our Master Jesus and this godly instruction, tag them for what they are: ignorant windbags who infect the air with germs of envy, controversy, bad-mouthing, suspicious rumors. Eventually there’s an epidemic of backstabbing, and truth is but a distant memory” (The Message). This is the kind of thing that is produced by their false teaching, because it doesn’t lead to godliness. It leads to an unprofitable, wasted life.
That leads to the third point, which is that spiritual discipline is motivated by hope. This idea comes across well in New Living Translation: “Physical exercise has some value, but spiritual exercise is much more important, for it promises a reward in both this life and the next. This is true and everyone should accept it. We work hard and suffer much in order that people will believe the truth, for our hope is in the living God....” Spiritual discipline, training for godliness, looks forward to eternity and finds motivation in the fact that one day soon this will all be over and we’ll be standing in God’s presence.
Spiritual discipline is necessary in this spiritual battleground that is all around us; it’s profitable both for this life and for eternity; and it’s strongly tied to our hope for the future. If we’re not motivated to cultivate godliness in our lives we’re either not thinking clearly, or we haven’t thought much about the fact that we will soon be standing in God’s presence, giving Him an account for how we’ve used our lives. Or we’re enslaved to the sin of sloth, which produces the qualities Screwtape was hoping for: “The more often he feels without acting, the less he will be able ever to act, and, in the long run, the less he will be able to feel.” It’s easy to deceive ourselves. We can be working 16 hours a day and still be guilty of sloth, because we may be using work as a way of avoiding something else God is calling us to do. So we need to begin by repenting of this sin and presenting our lives to the Lord to use as He wishes.
So what is this way of prayer, Lectio Divina, that I mentioned at the beginning of this sermon? It’s very simple, and I’ve often gotten distracted by complicating it or expecting it to be something it is not. It’s not a way to experience an emotionally intense time in God’s Word. This may happen, from time to time, but this is not what Lectio is primarily about. It is simply a way of reading and meditating on God’s Word and being attentive to Him.
There are four steps. The first is to read a passage of Scripture. I normally just read a phrase or so. I’ve been meditating on Ephesians 1 for a few weeks now and am not even halfway through the chapter. Read a few words and allow them to sink in; reread them over and over again. The purpose is to allow them to sink more deeply into your heart and mind. The second step is meditation, which has probably already started to happen by this point. Think about what is being said and how it connects with other things you’ve read in Scripture and how it might impact your life. And just reread it, allowing it to enter your mind in a deeper way. Those are the first two steps, Reading and Meditation.
The third step is Prayer. You’ve been listening to God speaking in His Word, so now respond with prayer. Sometimes it will be obvious what you need to pray for, but if not just turn the things you’ve been reading into prayer. Prayer is responsive speech. You’ve received something from God’s Word, so now respond to Him with your own words, whatever comes into your mind. And then, the fourth step is Contemplation, which is not as familiar to many Protestants. But it’s really not very complicated. Just choose a word or two, or even a phrase from the passage and sit in God’s presence, being silent and attentive to Him. If your mind starts to wander, recall the word or words from your passage. The point is not to receive a particular experience, but simply to sit in God’s presence after having listened to Him speaking in His Word. I encourage you to try this, to let this become part of your training in godliness, and in doing so may you taste more and more the reality of “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” that God has given us in Christ.
A few weeks ago I was having coffee with a friend. He has schizophrenia and was on my caseload when I worked in the mental health field, but I always scheduled him for Friday afternoons, because meeting with him ended my week on a positive note, even when he wasn’t doing that well. More than anyone I’ve known, he has learned to manage his mental illness. He’s brilliant and I love talking to him about ideas and things we’ve both read. I enjoy spending time with him, which is why we were having coffee even though meeting with him is no longer part of my job.
He is having some health problems and was scheduled for major surgery in a few weeks, so he asked me, very pointedly, some questions about prayer, especially how to pray. So I made a few general comments and then talked to him at some length about a way of prayer called Lectio Divina, which is just Latin for Divine Reading. I’ll say more about this later in the sermon; he seemed very encouraged by the suggestion and we parted ways. But when I left I realized that I have not been practicing this form of prayer I recommended to him. Admittedly we can’t all do everything all the time, but this is really one of my favorite ways of praying, and I had not been doing it for some time. It had just gotten away from me, crowded out by other things. So, since that day I’ve been practicing this way of prayer nearly every day. I offered this suggestion as a help to him, but it has ended up helping me. It may have helped me more than it helped him. That’s the way it is when Christians talk to each other, and this is one of the reasons I dislike the image of ministers as religious professionals who run churches, who are somehow disconnected from the community of faith.
The passage we’re looking at this morning gives us a picture of disciplined spiritual growth, whether we are church members or those who are involved in vocational ministry. Whichever category we belong to, as long as we are living in this fallen world, we need to hold firmly to two opposite truths. On the one hand, the Church is highly exalted in union with Jesus Christ. In Him we have every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms, and we are seated with Him at the right hand of God. This is a prominent theme in the New Testament and it‘s one of the things I‘ve been meditating on recently in my prayerful reading of Scripture. For example, Paul urges the Colossian Christians, “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:1-3). The Church is in union with Jesus Christ, and our true home is in heaven with Him. But, at the same time, we’re still living in this world which is continuing in rebellion against Him, this world that is dominated by spiritual forces of evil. We’re engaged in spiritual warfare, whether we like it or not. We’re living in a war zone and can’t escape from the conflict, no matter what we do. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12). We’re living in a world that is dominated by powers intent on destroying us.
Most of our enemy’s attacks are subtle, and if we’re not alert we won’t recognize them as attacks at all. The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis, is full of insights in this area. It’s a series of letters from Screwtape, a senior demon, to his nephew, Wormwood, advising him on how to destroy the life of God in his victim. In one of the letters, the human victim has just experienced spiritual renewal and repentance. Here’s what Screwtape says about it: “The great thing is to prevent his doing anything. As long as he does not convert it into action, it does not matter how much he thinks about this new repentance. Let the little brute wallow in it. Let him, if he has any bent that way, write a book about it; that is often an excellent way of sterilising the seeds which the Enemy plants in a human soul. Let him do anything but act. No amount of piety in his imagination and affections will harm us if we can keep it out of his will. As one of the humans has said, active habits are strengthened by repetition but passive ones are weakened. The more often he feels without acting, the less he will be able ever to act, and, in the long run, the less he will be able to feel” (pp. 60-61). As long as he doesn’t do anything, as long as he doesn’t follow up on it, the “little brute” can wallow in his repentance all he likes and Screwtape will be pleased. As long as he doesn’t act on it, his repentance is imaginary, because true repentance involves a change of direction, turning around and going the other way.
In the fourth century, a monk named John Cassian compiled a list of 8 sins that are especially dangerous, to help his fellow monks in examining themselves. Two centuries later, Pope Gregory the Great reduced the number to 7 (what we now call Gregorian Chant is named after him). Here’s the list: pride, envy, anger, sloth, greed, lust and gluttony (David L. Hall, The Seven Deadly Sins, pp. 12-13). It’s not that these seven deadly sins are the only ones to worry about. But they describe conditions of the heart which lead to all sorts of other sins. That’s why they’re deadly; they lead us on a steady course away from obedience to God.
The one I’m interested in this morning is sloth. The sin of sloth is what Screwtape is talking about when he says: “Let him do anything but act. No amount of piety in his imagination and affections will harm us if we can keep it out of his will.” This isn’t the same thing as what we call laziness. Here’s a definition of sloth: “The root of sloth and that which makes it sinful lies in the will. Sloth is an infectious evil that poisons the will so that there is no motivation – no passion – to act. Sloth is the cause of the self being overly protective of one’s time and energy.... Sloth persuades the will to make no effort... expend no energy. Sloth says, ‘It’s not worth it.’ Sloth makes that which is of ultimate importance seem not worth the effort” (David Hall, p. 57). Sloth destroys our motivation to do that which is most essential. We may be workaholics, but we’re guilty of sloth if we’re using work to escape from other things God wants us to do. Sloth prevents us from acting in response to God’s call in our lives. We may go through periods where we feel bad about our negligence; maybe we go forward in a meeting from time to time and ask for prayer. But we never act on it, and year after year we find ourselves going nowhere spiritually. The longer we allow this pattern to continue, the more difficult it is to break. “Sloth is an infectious evil that poisons the will so that there is no motivation – no passion – to act.”
In the passage we’re looking at today, Paul urges Timothy to diligently train himself in godly living. He doesn’t want sloth to prevent Timothy from going forward spiritually. Listen to verses 7-10 in The Message: “Exercise daily in God – no spiritual flabbiness, please! Workouts in the gymnasium are useful, but a disciplined life in God is far more so, making you fit both today and forever. You can count on this. Take it to heart. This is why we’ve thrown ourselves into this venture so totally. We’re banking on the living God....” Paul wants Timothy to approach his spiritual life like an athlete in training, giving himself to the routine of daily exercise.
The first thing we can see in this passage is that discipline in our spiritual lives is absolutely necessary if we want to survive in this spiritual war zone. The central idea in this passage is in the second half of verse 7: “train yourself to be godly.” Timothy was ministering in a difficult place. The spiritual life of the church was being undermined by false teachers, and his job was to deal with the situation. We can see this in Paul’s words at the beginning of this letter: “On my way to the province of Macedonia, I advised you to stay in Ephesus. Well, I haven’t changed my mind. Stay right there on top of things so that the teaching stays on track. Apparently some people have been introducing fantasy stories and fanciful family trees that digress into silliness instead of pulling the people back into the center, deepening faith and obedience. The whole point of what we’re urging is simply love – love uncontaminated by self-interest and counterfeit faith, a life open to God. Those who fail to keep to this point soon wander off into cul-de-sacs of gossip. They set themselves up as experts on religious issues, but haven’t the remotest idea of what they’re holding forth with such imposing eloquence.” The way to guard against the snares the enemy sends our way is to be diligent in spiritual discipline, to be diligently training ourselves in godliness.
If we don’t exercise diligence in our spiritual lives, we’re opening ourselves up to the attacks and delusions of the enemy. This shouldn’t surprise us. One of the effects of the Fall is that things tend to deteriorate when we leave them alone. What happens to your garden if you don’t carefully cultivate and tend it? It grows weeds, which choke out the things you’re trying to grow. And the same is true in our spiritual lives. If we neglect them, they’ll grow weeds which will choke out the life of the Spirit.
The word Paul uses in verse 7 means to exercise, or train. The word is gymnazo, which our word gymnasium is taken from. The author of Hebrews uses the same word in chapter 5 of his letter. The Hebrew Christians are on the verge of turning away from the gospel. They’ve been enduring persecution and difficulties, but now they’re ready to throw in the towel in the hopes of getting some relief. In chapter 5, the author rebukes them for their lack of maturity: “We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil” (5:11-14). They’re in trouble and are on the verge of turning away, because they haven’t exercised themselves, trained themselves to be godly. They’re in a perpetual state of spiritual immaturity. If they had been exercising diligence, they’d be mature by now and would have the spiritual resources to get through the crisis.
The word translated “strive,” in verse 10, is one that’s often used of an athletic contest. Paul uses a form of this work to describe athletes as those who strive in the games. “You’ve all been to the stadium and seen the athletes race. Everyone runs; one wins. Run to win. All good athletes train hard. They do it for a gold medal that tarnishes and fades. You’re after one that’s gold eternally. I don’t know about you, but I’m running hard for the finish line. I’m giving it everything I’ve got. No sloppy living for me! I’m staying alert and in top condition. I’m not going to get caught napping, telling everyone else about it and then missing out myself” (1 Corinthians 10, The Message). Paul’s motivation is that he wants to survive over the long term. He doesn’t want to get derailed by any of the enemy’s snares. He doesn’t want, in the midst of preaching to others, to lose the race himself. So he diligently trains himself for godliness, knowing that if he doesn’t do that, he won’t survive.
So spiritual discipline is necessary. But it’s not necessary like a bitter pill that we just have to swallow, even though we feel thoroughly miserable about it. Discipline isn’t easy. It isn’t the thing most of us would naturally choose on our own. But it’s profitable. That’s the second thing to notice here: spiritual discipline is profitable. It brings with it immense blessing, both now and in eternity. That’s Paul’s point in verse 8: “For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.”
Godly discipline is profitable, because it enables us to live more and more in the way we were created to live. The false teachings that were being spread in Ephesus were producing pretty disagreeable people. Listen to Paul’s description in chapter 6: “These are the things I want you to teach and preach. If you have leaders there who teach otherwise, who refuse the solid words of our Master Jesus and this godly instruction, tag them for what they are: ignorant windbags who infect the air with germs of envy, controversy, bad-mouthing, suspicious rumors. Eventually there’s an epidemic of backstabbing, and truth is but a distant memory” (The Message). This is the kind of thing that is produced by their false teaching, because it doesn’t lead to godliness. It leads to an unprofitable, wasted life.
That leads to the third point, which is that spiritual discipline is motivated by hope. This idea comes across well in New Living Translation: “Physical exercise has some value, but spiritual exercise is much more important, for it promises a reward in both this life and the next. This is true and everyone should accept it. We work hard and suffer much in order that people will believe the truth, for our hope is in the living God....” Spiritual discipline, training for godliness, looks forward to eternity and finds motivation in the fact that one day soon this will all be over and we’ll be standing in God’s presence.
Spiritual discipline is necessary in this spiritual battleground that is all around us; it’s profitable both for this life and for eternity; and it’s strongly tied to our hope for the future. If we’re not motivated to cultivate godliness in our lives we’re either not thinking clearly, or we haven’t thought much about the fact that we will soon be standing in God’s presence, giving Him an account for how we’ve used our lives. Or we’re enslaved to the sin of sloth, which produces the qualities Screwtape was hoping for: “The more often he feels without acting, the less he will be able ever to act, and, in the long run, the less he will be able to feel.” It’s easy to deceive ourselves. We can be working 16 hours a day and still be guilty of sloth, because we may be using work as a way of avoiding something else God is calling us to do. So we need to begin by repenting of this sin and presenting our lives to the Lord to use as He wishes.
So what is this way of prayer, Lectio Divina, that I mentioned at the beginning of this sermon? It’s very simple, and I’ve often gotten distracted by complicating it or expecting it to be something it is not. It’s not a way to experience an emotionally intense time in God’s Word. This may happen, from time to time, but this is not what Lectio is primarily about. It is simply a way of reading and meditating on God’s Word and being attentive to Him.
There are four steps. The first is to read a passage of Scripture. I normally just read a phrase or so. I’ve been meditating on Ephesians 1 for a few weeks now and am not even halfway through the chapter. Read a few words and allow them to sink in; reread them over and over again. The purpose is to allow them to sink more deeply into your heart and mind. The second step is meditation, which has probably already started to happen by this point. Think about what is being said and how it connects with other things you’ve read in Scripture and how it might impact your life. And just reread it, allowing it to enter your mind in a deeper way. Those are the first two steps, Reading and Meditation.
The third step is Prayer. You’ve been listening to God speaking in His Word, so now respond with prayer. Sometimes it will be obvious what you need to pray for, but if not just turn the things you’ve been reading into prayer. Prayer is responsive speech. You’ve received something from God’s Word, so now respond to Him with your own words, whatever comes into your mind. And then, the fourth step is Contemplation, which is not as familiar to many Protestants. But it’s really not very complicated. Just choose a word or two, or even a phrase from the passage and sit in God’s presence, being silent and attentive to Him. If your mind starts to wander, recall the word or words from your passage. The point is not to receive a particular experience, but simply to sit in God’s presence after having listened to Him speaking in His Word. I encourage you to try this, to let this become part of your training in godliness, and in doing so may you taste more and more the reality of “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” that God has given us in Christ.
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