Praying the Word

Where do we get started in the spiritual disciplines?

We must always start with the gospel as I made sure to remind you in my last entry. Be sure to think gospel thoughts everyday in all the spiritual pursuits of your life. Never, ever, ever do anything without grace in view. Preach the gospel to your own heart all the time.

Certainly it helps too to learn more about the disciplines. Bruce's recommendation of Donald Whitney's Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life is excellent. You'll go a long way before you read a more helpful book on the subject. Along with Mr. Whitney's fine work I'd recommend John Piper's book on fasting, A Hunger for God. I find in this work something much more than a reflection on fasting; I find in it a meditation on a life of consistent Godwardness. That is after all what the disciplines are about--a consistent moving of our hearts towards God. Dr. Piper's book is a book about having a heart that hungers for God above all else. Few books have moved me to seek God above all else witth all my being more than this one has.

But the best way to pursue the disciplines is to start the disciplines! Relying on the grace of God in Christ and crying out for the help of God by His Spirit just get started. Today, why not begin with the Word and prayer. Here's an idea: why not combine the two by praying the Word?

Recently I preached a sermon on this, entitled: PrayerWalk: Stepping toward Life in the Presence of God. Since you can listen to the message yourself, if you'd like, I won't rehearse all I taught.

Here's what I'll do: today I'll cite the testimony of George Mueller which put into eloquent words a practice God taught me long ago; tomorrow I'll pray the Word in my blog as a way of seeking God's favor on you, while also modeling this practice for you. Today, please read, enjoy, and be affected by the following testimony about praying the Word from a great man of God:

“Before this time my practice had been, at least for ten years previously, as an habitual thing, to give myself to prayer, after having dressed in the morning. Now I saw, that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, whilst meditating, my heart might be brought into experimental [experiential] communion with the Lord. I began therefore, to meditate on the New Testament, from the beginning, early in the morning.

The first thing I did, after having asked in a few words the Lord’s blessing upon His precious Word, was to begin to meditate on the Word of God; searching, as it were, into every verse, to get blessing out of it; not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word; not for the sake of preaching on what I had meditated upon; but for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul. The result I have found to be almost invariably this, that after a very few minutes my soul has been led to confession, or to thanksgiving, or to intercession, or to supplication; so that though I did not, as it were, give myself to prayer, but to meditation, yet it turned almost immediately more or less into prayer.

When thus I have been for awhile making confession, or intercession, or supplication, or have given thanks, I go on to the next words or verse, turning all, as I go on, into prayer for myself or others, as the Word may lead to it; but still continually keeping before me, that food for my own soul is the object of my meditation. The result of this is, that there is always a good deal of confession, thanksgiving, supplication, or intercession mingled with my meditation, and that my inner man almost invariably is even sensibly nourished and strengthened and that by breakfast time, with rare exceptions, I am in a peaceful if not happy state of heart…

The difference between my former practice and my present one is this. Formerly, when I rose, I began to pray as soon as possible, and generally spent all my time till breakfast in prayer, or almost all the time. At all events I almost invariably began with prayer…. But what was the result? I often spent a quarter of an hour, or half an hour, or even an hour on my knees, before being conscious to myself of having derived comfort, encouragement, humbling of soul, etc.; and often after having suffered much from wandering of mind for the first ten minutes, or a quarter of an hour, or even half an hour, I only then began really to pray.

I scarcely ever suffer now in this way. For my heart being nourished by the truth, being brought into experimental fellowship with God, I speak to my Father, and to my Friend (vile though I am, and unworthy of it!) about the things that He has brought before me in His precious Word.

It often now astonishes me that I did not sooner see this… And yet now, since God has taught me this point, it is as plain to me as anything, that the first thing the child of God has to do morning by morning is to obtain food for his inner man…Now what is the food for the inner man: not prayer, but the Word of God: and here again not the simple reading of the Word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what we read, pondering over it, and applying it to our hearts.

I dwell… on this point because of the immense spiritual profit and refreshment I [have] derived from it my self... By the blessing of God I ascribe to this mode the help and strength which I have had from God to pass in peace through deeper trials in various ways than I had ever had before; and after having now above forty years tried this way, I can most fully, in the fear of God, commend it. How different when the soul is refreshed and made happy early in the morning, from what it is when, without spiritual preparation, the service, the trials and the temptations of the day come upon one” (George Mueller).

I pray that we will all be likewise blessed.

Grace.