Brief Description Of Christian Meditation

Christian Meditation has a rich, holy and vibrant history that predates Christ and that Christ himself practiced as demonstrated in scripture during His times of "stealing away" and spending time alone in the presence of the Lord. This brief description of Christian meditation explains the history, intent and the four main types of Christian meditation in its formal sense which has been practiced for over 5000 years.

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.

Reviews

God bless you for all these great meditations and prayers.

Very clear explanation. Helps understanding and can serve as an introduction to other meditations. Thanks for sharing!

Clear and well explained. I listened to it 3x to fully digest it.

Beautifully spoken ! Thank you for the simple clarification. ❤️

Beautiful, poignant explanation!

Excellent explanation.

Thank you for speaking on this. I love to hear more about the meditative practices of Christ!

Loved the description of yielding to God in Christian meditation.

Very helpful explanation. Love your live sessions!

Wonderful description. Also, I went to Lives and yours didnt come up. Then i realized that you mentioned that you changed the days your lives will be on. I wanted to know what day(s) you changed it too. Thank you so much!! - Meg

interesting approach

informative, and enjoyable

Really grateful to hear this description. Interesting to find much similarity to Buddhist meditation. Thich Nhat Hanh has led a meditation where he advised ‘Let the Buddha meditate, you just enjoy the meditation’. He means the Buddha in our true nature. When we meditate, we open up and let our inner Buddha do the work, we just relax and enjoy. This was very helpful advice, especially for a usually restless me... Thank you and Amen 🙏

Absolutely LOVE this explanation! For some reason when I tell my family who are Christian about my meditation practice, I’m sometimes met with confusion and resistance. Thank you.🙏🏽

Very educational, voice is so relaxing and I love Christian Meditation. Thank you

Very informative and inspiring. Thank you!

Thank you for explaining how to use meditation in our relationship with God. The way to let God guide us in stillness.

Informative ! And a great way of understanding meditation as theocentric and not egocentric - loved it!