Author: Mark Virkler
Bible meditation involves Jesus illuminating Scripture to our hearts. It is a direct living encounter with Jesus through the Holy Spirit. It is described in Luke 24:32, "Didn’t our hearts burn with the flames of holy passion while we walked beside him? He unveiled for us such profound revelation from the Scriptures!” (TPT)
The disciples weren’t just studying the Bible. Jesus was with them explaining the true meaning of Scripture to them. There was an impartation. They FELT it. It was an experience. The cool thing is, Jesus is still Immanuel, God with us, and He is still opening the Bible to our hearts and minds.
Christianity is more than mechanically speaking some keywords and then being heaven-bound. I was even told that I don’t need to feel anything at the point of salvation. Hm. Really? Once the Lord gives us a new heart and a new spirit, fills us with kingdom power and kingdom emotions of love, joy, and peace, we WILL feel something, and we will know that the Christian experience is a living encounter with the living God, not just some sterile creed we have adopted into our lives.
Reflections on "Mechanical Religion" by A. W. Tozer
The doctrine of justification by faith—a Biblical truth, and a blessed relief from sterile legalism and unavailing self-effort—has in our time fallen into evil company and been interpreted by many in such manner as actually to bar men from the knowledge of God.
The whole transaction of religious conversion has been made mechanical and spiritless. Faith may now be exercised without a jar to the moral life and without embarrassment to the Adamic ego. Christ may be “received” without creating any special love for Him in the soul of the receiver. The man is “saved,” but he is not hungry nor thirsty after God. In fact he is specifically taught to be satisfied and encouraged to be content with little.
In the story below, Ruth experiences miraculous instantaneous healing of her foot as She has a living encounter with Jesus through Bible meditation.
Ruth experiences a miracle of healing as she meditates on a scripture passage
I was celebrating communion and the Lord had placed on my heart the Isaiah 53 passage.
He was despised and rejected by men, a man of deep sorrow who was no stranger to suffering and grief. We hid our faces from him in disgust and considered him a nobody, not worthy of respect. Yet, he was the one who carried our sicknesses and endured the torment of our sufferings. We viewed him as one who was being punished for something he himself had done, as one who was struck down by God and brought low. But it was because of our rebellious deeds that he was pierced and because of our sins that he was crushed. He endured the punishment that made us completely whole, and in his wounding we found our healing (Isa. 53:3-5).
The Lord kept drawing me back to these verses after communion. I haven’t liked these verses much - or this part of the Easter story. I usually skim quickly over it - this was MY sin that put him there. But this day the Lord kept me in it. I saw Jesus walking to the cross. He held out his hand to invite me along, and I walked behind Him. Jesus turned around and looked at me. He said, “Only I could have done this. No one else could have. I’m the only one!” And His face was strong and determined, and this time not bloody or in pain.
As He turned around and kept walking to the cross, I saw the deep gashes in His back. And then I noticed — in His back I saw the outline of my foot. (I had surgery on my foot about one and a half years ago. It had nerve damage that never healed. It is so painful and I have felt that I’ll just have to live with it.) When I saw my foot, I said to Jesus, “Lord, You carried my foot? It’s not a sickness or disease, or sin — it’s pain….” And as soon as I said the word “pain” Jesus turns and grabs the word as it is spoken and says to me, “I took that pain!” And immediately the pain left my foot. Immediately the pain left my foot!!! I moved it, wiggled it, stepped on it, moved around - there was NO pain!!! NO PAIN! He took my pain!?!? I walked around and laughed and giggled and cried all day - it was like 10 years ago when I didn’t have ANY pain in my foot! I have a new foot! He took the pain!!
I’ve had so much prayer for my foot over the past year and a half. And this healing happened with just me and Jesus - in Isaiah 53 on His way to the cross!
A few days later I was talking with Jesus about this again and He said to me, “The joy you feel about your foot healed is the joy that was set before me as I went to the cross!” He is smiling huge! He is so happy to heal my foot - and provide ALL the healing for us! All that He has done for us because of the cross! He is the only One!
The Church awakens bringing revival to our land
We watched the powerful Flashpoint conference at the Mabee Center at Oral Roberts University. I strongly encourage you to take it in. It contains powerful prophecies, testimonies of deliverance from demons that sets people free from sexual perversion, and divine healing. This is the Church in action. This is what our nation needs to see. You and I can pray and believe for deliverance and healing for those whom our lives touch. Each of us can do our part.
It is time for the Church to stand up and declare with Peter:
May grace and perfect peace cascade over you as you live in the rich knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. Everything we could ever need for life and complete devotion to God has already been deposited in us by his divine power. For all this was lavished upon us through the rich experience of knowing him who has called us by name and invited us to come to him through a glorious manifestation of his goodness. As a result of this, he has given you magnificent promises that are beyond all price, so that through the power of these tremendous promises you can experience partnership with the divine nature, by which you have escaped the corrupt desires that are of the world. (2 Pet. 1:2-4 TPT)
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