Medicate or Meditate

Introduction

Have you ever had a sickness that requires antibiotics? If you have you know that antibiotics, when prescribed the doctor typically tells you to take them all. Even when you start to feel better the doctor will make certain that you understand that the antibiotics are there to take until you finish them. It is important that we take all the medication because if we do not the infection could come back and be worse the second time.

Although medication and meditation help the physical and mental health of a person they are two completely different things. Some of us meditate on what God puts before us, we focus on it. We take a deep look at how it applies to ourselves. Some of us are just looking at God to medicate us, when we are struggling for sin, we set an appointment and look for him to provide an instant prescription. Nonetheless when we are just looking to be medicated we do not want to truly be healed, we just want enough medicine to feel good about our sickness.

Are you medicating or meditating?

God is not a temporary fix, he is a permanent resource to our fallible nature.

Understand that meditation on the will and word of God is something that we all need to do. Everyone here is here to offer to God something.

“And they brought in the ark of God and place it inside the tent which David had pitched for it, and they offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before God.

Participation in the promises or worship is needed by more than those who are carrying the ark.

Although the offerings were made by David himself, everyone was there meditating and offering to God what he is due.

Meditating requires thanksgiving:

It is impossible to focus on Yaweh without acknowledging the goodness of God.

Verse eight states “Oh give thanks to the Lord, call upon His name; Make known His deeds among the people”.

give is imperative, meaning we are commanded to give thanks to the Lord and call upon his name.

We see in verse 34, the same thing is reiterated.

Not only are we to be thankful for the things God has done in the past, but we are to thank him for the things that he is currently doing in our life right now!

Medication is just a temporary fix

Some of us are looking for a temporary fix because our problems have become too much for us to bear and we have realized that we can’t do it by ourselves.

Do not come to Jesus for help just to walk away from him again.

The power of God does not deplete, his goal is not just to temporary heal you but permanently heal you so that you do not need the same medicine you wants needed.

God wants us healthy for him, so that we can show others what true spiritual health is.

Meditation means focusing on God, and understanding that what God has done in our life does not need to kept to ourselves.

“Make known His deeds amongst the peoples”

Now O Lord our God, I pray, deliver us from his hand that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone, O Lord, are God”

He deserves our praise! verse 9 states Sing to Him, sing praises to Him:

Sing expressions of thanks, our meditation reminds of trials but this is worship, there are some things we need to be thankful about. We need to sing our thankfulness unto him.

Verse 9 ends with Speak of all His wonders: The word speak in this text actually means to meditate on the wonderful acts of God.

Praise God for the things that he did that were too difficult for us, his unusual acts in our life, the acts and the blessings we did not deserve yet God felt the need to provide!

That meditation led to them explicitly saying Sin to Yahweh, chant to him.

Marvelous things that God has done should not be dismissed or ignored.

In college I drove a 1984 Corsica, and I had a buddy that went to University of North Texas and I was going to drive out there and hang out with him, well as I was on my way home and my car started to stall on the freeway, the lights went out, then the engine stalled at the top of the bridge that transports you from 35 to 635. As my car stalled my lights were out, 18 wheeler swerved around me, cars honked at me because I was hindering their journey because I could not make mine and I was in the way. Thank God for my mother getting out of her bed at night and giving me a jump so I could get home.

It was a marvelous act that I did not get hit, it was a marvelous act that I made it home. As soon as I got home, Thank You God. Nonetheless that thankfulness was not the end, I had to get my car fixed so I would not stall anymore.

Many of us live life from jump to jump rather than seeing the Glory in His Holy name; Let the heart of those who seek the Lord be glad.

Medication does not mean the work is done:

It just means that because of your willingness to submit to the medication it will help you become healthy enough to get some real work done.

Verse 11-12 Seek the Lord and His strength; seek his face continually.

Understand we see the same word “seek” but they mean two different things.

Seek the presence of God in eternity, but meanwhile seek the wisdom of God in his word.

Meditating on God means we remember his wonderful deeds, His deeds what we are unsure how he did them but we know he did them.

God heals us from the pain and mistreatment of our enemies so that we can meditate on him and become healthy enough to begin to treat people right and love again.

Remember that God forgave you, so you can forgive someone else.

It is similar to go to the dentist when you have an infection or abscess. You may need a root canal or some work done, but until the abscess is taken care of they cannot get the work done.

Now once the abscess is gone, typically the pain subsides and things are better but the work needs to be done because if it isn’t done the infection will come back.

This is similar to Satan and sin, sometimes God has to remove the sin so he can truly get to work in our life. He may remove the pain of sin, and the pain of heartache and you might start feeling better, that is not the time to ignore God, but it is the time to focus and meditate on him even more.

Understand that in they make a decision to move the ark back to Jerusalem. They are thankful that God is delivering them back home, but going home is not a point of relaxation but time to go to work even harder. God does not deliver you to your promise land so that you can put your feet up!