Psalms 119:97-100 “Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day. (98) You, through Your commandments, make me wiser than my enemies; For they are ever with me. (99) I have more understanding than all my teachers, For Your testimonies are my meditation. (100) I understand more than the ancients, because I keep Your precepts.”
As a child, our Lord Jesus was taught the word of God along with the other children He grew up with, but that is where the similarity ended, for the Lord Jesus did something different with the word He was taught, which resulted in our Lord’s understanding of God’s word, even as a twelve-year-old, astonishing the theological professors of His day (Luke 2:42-47). In the passage of scripture quoted above the Holy Spirit reveals to us that the reason why our Lord Jesus had more understanding than all His teachers was because the word of God was His constant meditation. And so we see a principle revealed to us through our Lord’s lifestyle, which is that meditation on God’s word produces understanding of His word in our minds. There is a substantial difference between us and the Lord Jesus in this area however, for Jesus never had to renew His mind, whereas we do. Nevertheless the principle is very clear i.e. if the sinless Son of God had to meditate on God’s word day and night so that He could gain understanding of His word, then we are going to have put that same principle into practice if we are going to replace worldly thinking with spiritual thinking.
John 8:31-32 “Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, "If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. (32) And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
Although the Lord gives us the ability to understand the scriptures once we are born-again, it is up to us to spend time in His word so that the Holy Spirit can lead us and guide us into all truth. In the above quoted passage of scripture the Lord tells us that those who abide in His word are the ones who are His disciples. To abide in God’s word means to dwell on it i.e. to constantly think about His word. That practice doesn’t come naturally to believers because our minds our programmed to think as this world thinks, and so it takes discipline on the part of the believer to constantly focus their thoughts on God’s word, which is why the Lord Jesus refers to those believers as His disciples indeed. And so we see that simply reading God’s word is not sufficient to renew one’s mind, although it does help, but rather it is constant meditation in His word that is essential in order for the saint to attain to a renewed mind.
Michael E.B. Maher
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