Brief Description Of Christian Meditation

Transcript

Hello.

Today I wanted to give a brief description of Christian meditation in its formal sense.

Christian meditation is over 5,

000 years old and predates Christ.

Many desert fathers and mothers would steal away time,

Get quiet so that they would have an opportunity to hear from the voice of God.

In scripture,

Many prophets would go into places of solitude so that they would be able to be in tune with the voice and the spirit of God.

There are four main types of Christian meditation in its formal sense.

Centering Prayer,

Which is a form of silent prayer that you make yourself quiet and available to the presence of God.

There is mantra-based meditation.

Mantra-based meditation may be the repeating of one word,

Such as maranatha,

Maranatha,

Maranatha,

Which means come Lord come,

Again yielding yourself to the presence of God.

The Jesus Prayer is a repetitive prayer that is simply Lord have mercy,

Lord have mercy,

Lord have mercy,

Or Lord have mercy on me,

Lord have mercy on me.

And then we have Lectio Divina.

Lectio Divina is taking scripture and not dissecting the scripture,

But allowing the scripture to be ingested and then digested in your spirit.

You may use that scripture to encourage yourself.

You may use it to be repeated,

But you're allowing the scripture to be ingrained in your spirit.

Christian meditation can be a five-minute meditation or it can be a 45-minute meditation.

The goal in Christian meditation is simply to be in the presence of God.

Christian meditation is a theocentric practice,

Meaning it is God-led.

We make ourselves simply available to the presence of God and he leads the process.

So in Christian meditation,

We are yielding.

We don't go into Christian meditation with a particular intent,

With a particular agenda.

The Lord sets the agenda and he creates the intent.

So we simply yield ourselves and allow our hearts and our minds to be transformed by the presence of a loving God.