Three years in the past, in the summertime of 2021, the primary episodes had been launching for the podcast “The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill.” The sequence had twelve episodes, plus a number of bonus episodes. In a kind of, from two years in the past (July 2022), the host interviewed Tim Keller, who died in Might 2023.
Late within the interview, Keller is requested, “How do you account to your personal longevity in ministry?” Keller solutions,
Earlier on [in ministry], one of many issues that helps you proceed to develop in grace and . . . frankly, not get an inflated ego, not get blind spots, [is] Hebrews 3:13 fellowship (“exhort each other day by day, so long as it’s known as ‘at the moment,’ that none of it’s possible you’ll be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin”).
In different phrases, Keller says,
You’ve acquired to have some individuals in your life who exhort you each day as a result of sin will at all times blind you; the deceitfulness of sin at all times blinds you. So, who’s it in your life that really is permitted to return discuss to you, have a look at you, actually rake you over the coals if obligatory?
Hopefully you’re nodding your head. I hope you’ve had it, and nonetheless have it, and also you’ve even endorsed others to have it. However this isn’t Keller’s final phrase. He continues,
As time went on, although, right here’s what has to occur. You possibly can conceal even from individuals like that. I noticed that halfway. You possibly can nonetheless do dangerous issues. You possibly can nonetheless have an affair, you’ll be able to nonetheless do issues, nonetheless getting hooked on pornography. You possibly can conceal. And in addition, right here’s one other downside: it’s very troublesome to make associates like that in the event you lose them, if anyone dies or anyone strikes away or that type of factor. It’s very troublesome in your . . . forties, fifties, sixties, to exit and get one other particular person like that. And due to this fact . . . oh, the prayer life. . . . And never simply praying about issues. Communion with God. Learn John Owen’s little ebook . . . Communion with God, the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. . . . It talks concerning the function of prayer is to really have the love of God shed overseas in your coronary heart. To really have it, to really see his face, to really sense the grace of God . . . there really needs to be a real experiential life. Not simply say your prayers, not simply learn your Bible.
All this units up what he says a couple of minutes later:
The one actual accountability that simply can’t be averted is once you’ve skilled God’s presence and his love, and it’s so scrumptious that you simply say, “I simply don’t . . . need to lose that; I can’t lose that.” That’s the one accountability I do know. Even accountability with my spouse — I may lie. There is no such thing as a different accountability. And even only a prayer life through which you pray. I learn my Bible and pray day by day. The actual query is, Are you having fellowship with God or communion with God, and do you generally commune with God in his love with Christ and his grace and the Holy Spirit and his consolation? Do you? And in the event you do, that’s the factor you say: “I can not reside with out that.”
In order that’s our focus on this session. How do I get that? How do I get pleasure from a real experiential communion with God that may make me say, “I can’t lose that. My soul can not go with out that. I’ve tasted. I’ve been fed.” It caught me off guard at first that Keller stated “scrumptious,” however on additional reflection, I like that he says that. That is tasting, feeding, savoring, and consuming imagery. “Scrumptious” is shocking however proper.
So, how do I get that? How do I get spiritually rooted, like a tree planted by streams of water, just like the completely happy man of Psalm 1? Let’s get assist from some outdated males.
First, Mueller
Another person who talks about “experiential communion with God” is George Mueller (1805–1898), whose ministry cared for greater than ten thousand orphans in England. In his autobiography, Mueller tells of a life-changing discovery he made within the first half of 1841.
In a journal entry dated Might 7, he captures the perception that he discovered himself stumbling onto that spring. By the point he got here to arrange the fifth version for press, he added that he’d now been benefitting from this for fourteen years. The entry is one long paragraph of greater than 1,500 phrases that rewards cautious and a number of readings.
Over time, I’ve learn it time and again and appear to revenue from it extra every time I come again to it. Mueller’s life-changing perception has proved important for me as properly. As I once more reread this journal entry in current days, I seen a number of distinct features of this one lesson and could be ordered into the next sequence.
1. Your Activity: Get Your Soul in a Comfortable State
In brief, the good discovery, Mueller stated, was that “the primary nice and first enterprise to which I should attend day by day was to have my soul completely happy within the Lord.” What a enterprise! Nearly some other obligation would land as burdensome, however “get completely happy”? Brothers, that is for each Christian, and very true for us. That’s your job, not solely as Christians however as pastors, and is the primary job of day by day: get your soul completely happy in God. That may be a deeply refreshing job.
Mueller restates the purpose as “the very first thing to be involved about [is] . . . how I would get my soul into a cheerful state.” The invention is about in opposition to the backdrop of different issues which can be not our first calling: “not how a lot I would serve the Lord,” not setting the reality earlier than the unconverted, not benefiting believers, not relieving the distressed, not behaving on the planet as matches a toddler of God. None of those actual, important callings is “first and first.” None of those is “the primary and first enterprise.” Most essential shouldn’t be pouring out however first being crammed up. And particularly for us pastors, he says, “not for the sake of the general public ministry of the phrase, not for the sake of preaching on what I had meditated upon.”
So, very first thing first: get your soul completely happy in him. Discover happiness in God. You get up hungry for God. Heed your starvation and feast.
However we ask, “How? How does starvation change into happiness?”
2. How: By Feeding on God
Mueller’s reply is the feeding or nourishing of the inside man on God: “The very first thing the kid of God has to do morning by morning is to get hold of meals for his inside man.” He involves God, he says, “for the sake of acquiring meals for my very own soul,” and as he lingers in God’s presence, he goals to “frequently preserve earlier than [him] that meals for [his] personal soul is the thing of [his] meditation.”
Subsequent, we’d ask, “The place? The place do you flip to search out such meals to your soul?”
3. The place: In His Phrase
Mueller’s reply — easy, and maybe unsurprising, but profound and transformative — is the phrase of God. To verify we don’t miss it, he asks the query for us and solutions it: “What’s the meals for the inside man? Not prayer, however the phrase of God.”
Now we decide up an essential a part of the lesson. Mueller says that for years his former apply was to awake and go straight into prayer. It would take him ten minutes, and even half an hour, to search out sufficient focus to actually pray. He then may spend “even an hour, on [his] knees” earlier than receiving any “consolation, encouragement, humbling of soul, and many others.” He had the purpose proper: get my soul completely happy in God. He had the path proper: come to feed on God. However he had the posture unsuitable. Or he had the order unsuitable. The lesson he wanted to be taught was this: come first to listen to, then to talk. That’s, come first to obtain God’s phrase, then to hope in response.
In God’s phrase “we discover our Father chatting with us, to encourage us, to consolation us, to instruct us, to humble us, to reprove us.” God’s phrase nourishes and strengthens the soul. His phrase leads, supplies, warns, and steadies. Then in prayer, we converse to God in response to what he says to us in his phrase.
At this level, we’d assume we all know how to absorb God’s phrase: simply learn it. In spite of everything, that’s what you do with a written textual content, proper? Mueller has yet another clarifying phrase, and it may be his most essential for us at the moment. What he’s speaking about, he says, is “not the easy studying of the phrase of God . . . however contemplating what we learn, pondering over it, and making use of it to our hearts.” In different phrases, that is what he and plenty of different nice saints have known as “meditation.”
4. Tempo: By means of Meditation
This meditation is a vital side of the lesson, and for us, nearly two centuries later, it more and more has change into a misplaced artwork. Did anybody obtain any important instruction in seminary on easy methods to meditate?
Mueller’s first point out of “meditation” clarifies what sort of studying he means: “a very powerful factor I needed to do was to present myself to the studying of the phrase of God, and to meditation on it.” He then makes plain that meditation considerations the guts. Mere studying may fill the top, however meditation designs to consolation, encourage, warn, reprove, instruct, make software to the guts.
He doubles again to say extra. “Meditate on the phrase of God” means “looking because it had been into each verse, to get blessing out of it . . . for the sake of acquiring meals for my very own soul.” Having chewed on one chunk, and savored it, he says, “I’m going on to the following phrases or verse, turning all, as I’m going on, into prayer for myself or others, because the phrase could result in it, however nonetheless constantly preserving earlier than me that meals for my very own soul is the thing of my meditation.”
He comes again as soon as extra to make clear. What he means is “not the easy studying of the phrase of God, in order that it solely passes via our minds, simply as water via a pipe, however contemplating what we learn, pondering over it, and making use of it to our hearts.” This sequence of three verbs often is the most assist he offers us as to how we’d meditate ourselves and never merely learn.
Mueller, just like the Psalms, would have us not simply learn the Scriptures however decelerate, pause, and reread, that we’d contemplate what we learn, ponder over it, and apply it to our hearts — that’s, not solely or primarily to our sensible lives, however in the beginning to our hearts.
Such a deliberate, affectional reception of God’s phrase naturally leads us into prayer.
5. Response: Prayer
Don’t assume that Mueller is minimizing prayer. Reasonably, by placing prayer in its correct place (in response to God’s phrase) is he helps prayer to flourish.
Having heard from God in his phrase, and regarded it, contemplated over it, and utilized it to my coronary heart, he says, “I converse to my Father and to my Pal . . . concerning the issues that he has introduced earlier than me in his treasured phrase.”
“Meditation seeks pleasure in God at the moment.”
Such meditation quickly results in our response — in truth, “it turned nearly instantly kind of into prayer.” The time when prayer “could be most successfully carried out is after the inside man has been nourished by meditation on the phrase of God.” Now, having heard our Father’s voice all the way in which down into our souls, we discover ourselves in a position “actually to hope,” and so to really commune with God.
Communion with Jesus
You’ll discover in Mueller’s Might 7, 1841, journal entry that “meditation and prayer” is for him synonymous with the phrase “communion with God.” To commune with God shouldn’t be solely to deal with him in prayer; neither is it merely to listen to from him in his phrase. Communion entails God’s talking, and ours. It is a dwelling, Father-child relationship. God speaks first in his phrase, and we obtain his phrases with the starvation, delight, and unhurried tempo that turns into the phrase of our Father and divine Pal. Then we converse, humbly but boldly, in response, adoring our God, confessing our sins, thanking him for his grace and mercy, and petitioning him for ourselves, our family members, and even those that look like enemies.
This listening to from God and responding to him Mueller calls “experimental communion with the Lord.” Together with his “coronary heart being nourished by the reality,” he says, he’s “introduced into experimental fellowship with God” in meditation and prayer. And never solely with God the Father however “the Lord” Jesus — the risen, reigning Christ, seated on heaven’s throne, dwelling in us by his Spirit.
A number of instances Mueller emphasizes that such communion with God is rarely a method to ministry and feeding others, however God usually supplies leftovers. Such early-morning meals, deeply savored within the soul, could “quickly after or at a later time” show to be “meals for different believers,” however this isn’t the purpose. Ministry shouldn’t be the soul’s first and first enterprise every day however soul-satisfying communion with the risen Christ via his phrase.
This hedonistic method to every new day was life-changing for Mueller. And it gave him the assistance and energy “to move in peace via deeper trials, in numerous methods, than [he] had ever had earlier than.” It has been important for me too. Maybe it’s or can be so for you as properly. He stated, “How totally different when the soul is refreshed and made completely happy early within the morning!”
Query 1: What About Extroverted Pastors?
A lot for Mueller and his life-changing discovery. Now, what I’d love to do with our remaining minutes is ask and reply 4 follow-up questions. One you may ask is that this: “What about extroverted pastors? A few of us acquired into ministry as a result of we love individuals! We wish to be with individuals. Some pastors appear to need to research on a regular basis, however what about the remainder of us?”
To reply that, first, let me say: you may have the remainder of the day — from breakfast to bedtime. And let me attract perspective from Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758):
A real Christian probably delights in spiritual fellowship, and Christian dialog, and finds a lot to have an effect on his coronary heart in it; however he additionally delights at instances to retire from all mankind, to converse with God in solitary locations. And this additionally [so, do both!] has its peculiar benefits for fixing his coronary heart, and fascinating his affections. True faith disposes individuals to be a lot alone in solitary locations, for holy meditation and prayer. . . .
It’s the nature of true grace, that nonetheless it loves Christian society as an alternative, but it in a peculiar method delights in retirement, and secret converse with God. In order that if individuals seem significantly engaged in social faith, and however little within the faith of the closet, and are sometimes extremely affected when with others, and however little moved after they have none however God and Christ to converse with, it appears to be like very darkly upon their faith. (Spiritual Affections, 374, 376)
Query 2: Can You Say Extra About Meditation?
Second, “Are you able to say extra about meditation than Mueller does?” I’m glad you requested. Let me add 4 items.
First, meditation entails a course of. It’s not a swap to flip on. You don’t simply up and meditate. Meditation is the purpose and apex of Bible consumption, and as a center (usually forgotten) behavior, it entails lead-up and follow-through. You progress into it, and out of it.
Second, right here’s extra about tempo of our engagement with God’s phrase: learn on the tempo of the textual content and of understanding and pleasure. For many of us, it is a slower tempo (maybe a far slower tempo) than we default to when studying different texts in our lives. In our age of accelerations, expertise and society situation us to learn sooner and sooner. However the Bible, as an historic ebook, was written slowly and punctiliously to be learn slowly and punctiliously. So, we start with an unhurried studying (and rereading) of God’s phrase. The Bible is a E-book made for meditation.
Third, meditation types and shapes the soul. That’s, it modifications us. We are going to meditate (that’s, spontaneous meditation). Our minds will run someplace. The query shouldn’t be if, however on what. Sports activities? Picture and physique? Job and cash? Your youngsters? Politics? Anxiousness about society? Information?
Ask your self, “What frequently captures my consideration?” That can form you. In truth, it’s already shaping you. And particularly so with what we select to present our consideration to — what we click on. What you meditate on, in time, situations your wishes. Christian meditation requires setting and resetting our minds, and notably our hearts, on the best focuses potential.
Fourth, meditation seeks pleasure in God at the moment. “Right now” means proper now (not simply long-term formation). It goals to heat the guts, stir the affections, fulfill our souls proper now within the one they had been made for (like Mueller, who acquired his soul completely happy earlier than breakfast!) — as in these 4 statements about meditation from 4 seventeenth-century voices, again earlier than meditation was a misplaced artwork:
- Thomas Watson (1620–1686): “Research is the discovering out of a fact, meditation is the religious enchancment [that is, “use” or “making the most”] of a fact.”
- Samuel Ward (1577–1640): “Fire up thy soul in [meditation] to converse with Christ. Look what guarantees and privileges thou dost habitually consider, now really consider them, roll them below thy tongue, chew on them until thou really feel some sweetness within the palate of thy soul.”
- Edmund Calamy (1600–1666): In meditation, be like “the Bee that dwells and abides upon the flower, to suck out all of the sweetness.”
- William Bates (1625–1699): Since meditation usually requires persistence, particularly once you’re first studying the misplaced artwork, meditate “until thou dost discover some wise profit conveyed to thy soul.” Many people surrender far too rapidly and simply. Don’t let him go until he blesses you! Hold at it “until the flame doth so ascend.”
Virtually, what sort of time may you put aside? I’d say maybe half an hour for newcomers. And as you change into conversant in studying the biblical textual content extra slowly and pausing to meditate on phrases and ideas that arrest your consideration — and be taught to search out some sweetness, some wise profit to your soul — you’ll finally end up wanting extra time and house, and maybe develop it towards an hour, or extra.
Query 3: Will It Work for Me?
Mueller says the consequence for him has been that “my inside man nearly invariably is even sensibly nourished and strengthened” such that he’s “in a peaceable if not completely happy state of coronary heart.” “I scarcely ever endure now on this approach.” What if that’s not been your expertise?
Keller mentions John Owen (1616–1683), and right here I’d like to attract what he says about studying to seize and direct your individual coronary heart. Now, Owen is particularly out of step with fashionable assumptions. Owen wouldn’t be so fast to grant the excuse, “I’m simply not feeling it at the moment.” In truth, he probably would reply forcefully — and many people may be higher for it.
He would at the very least problem whether or not our preliminary emotions decided something important in any respect. He certainly wouldn’t say to skip God’s phrase (or prayer or church) to cater to no matter unspiritual inclination you awakened feeling. Reasonably, he may say, as Keller summarizes, “Meditate to the purpose of pleasure.” Don’t give in to your coronary heart’s first inclinations. Reasonably, seize them, and direct them — like Martyn Lloyd-Jones saying to not take heed to your self however discuss to your self, in truth preach to your self. However there’s a selected level in Owen that’s not in Lloyd-Jones. So, again to Owen. Open the Bible and switch your consideration to the one who’s supremely worthy, and preserve your nostril within the E-book, and your thoughts on Jesus, till your sluggish coronary heart begins to reply prefer it ought to.
How usually will we hear even Christians (even pastors) concede, as a veiled excuse, to be “wired” a sure approach? Certainly, God has wired us in sure methods. However how usually will we resign ourselves to being hardwired in methods we’re really way more pliable? And the world’s not serving to us with this. Our society has come to feign plasticity in exactly the locations we’re hardwired (like organic intercourse) and to fake hardwiring within the locations we’re really plastic (wishes and delights).
Lengthy earlier than anybody talked about neuroplasticity, Owen believed in what we’d name “affectional plasticity” — that’s, your wishes and delights will not be hardwired. They’re pliable. You possibly can reshape and recondition them. You possibly can retrain them. It’s possible you’ll be unable to easily flip them with full impact within the second to make your self really feel one thing, however you’ll be able to reshape your coronary heart over time. Oh, are you able to. Your wishes, good and dangerous, will not be easy givens. Stretched out over time, because the composite of numerous selections, they’re splendidly (and hauntingly) chosen.
I notice there could also be all kinds of responses to this on this room. Some may be considering, Nicely, duh. How else would I survive in ministry with out communing with God like this via mediation and prayer? And others may be completely blown away by this. You learn rapidly, pray your lists, transfer on along with your busy ministry day. So, in the event you’re among the many quantity that this lands on closely, and also you assume, That is inconceivable. I do know my sluggish soul. I can’t direct my coronary heart. I can’t “get my soul completely happy in God,” Owen presents hope for you. He says,
Fidelity in [this] obligation will give means for it. Those that rigorously abide in its efficiency shall enhance in mild, knowledge, and expertise till they’re able to handle it with nice success.
As Keller feedback, we “hear, research, assume, mirror, and ponder the Scriptures till there may be an answering response in our hearts and minds” (Prayer, 55, emphasis added) — which leads us to prayer. In response to Keller,
Meditation earlier than prayer consists of considering, then inclining, and, lastly, both having fun with the presence or admitting the absence and asking for his mercy and assist. Meditation is considering a fact out after which considering a fact in till its concepts change into “huge” and “candy,” transferring and affecting, and till the truth of God is sensed upon the guts. (162)
Query 4: What About Jesus?
For Christians, the ultimate focus of our meditation is private, and each completely human and totally divine within the particular person of Jesus Christ. Not solely is he the ultimate focus of our meditation, but additionally our supreme instance.
Have you ever ever thought of how the God-man knew Scripture so properly? They didn’t have their very own copies within the first century. If Jesus isn’t merely drawing upon his divinity to cite texts and use ideas his human thoughts had by no means discovered and regarded, then how is it that Jesus is aware of Scripture so properly?
I need to shut with these phrases from Sinclair Ferguson’s chapter on “The Spirit of Christ” (in his ebook The Holy Spirit). There he addresses our query:
Jesus’s intimate acquaintance with Scripture didn’t come [magically from heaven] through the interval of his public ministry; it was grounded little question on his early training, however nourished [!] by lengthy years of private meditation. Later, in his public ministry, it turns into evident that he was intimately conversant in its contents . . . and in addition possessed in his human nature a data of God by the Spirit which lent freshness, authority, and a way of actuality to his educating. (44)
That’s what I would like, brothers, and what I would like for you in your ministries: freshness, authority, and a way of actuality to your educating — that may come not simply from coming to this E-book to learn and research, however from our coming to acquire meals for our personal souls via unhurried, hedonistic meditation on the phrase of God.
