Christians in America have often struggled with one key piece of the Christian faith, and that is the spiritual side of it. God is a spirit, and those that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth (John 4:24) those who follow him must be ready for that. This means that God is also going to demonstrate and interact with us in spiritual ways, such as praying in tongues, visions, dreams, prophecies, miracles, blessing us with knowledge and wisdom and more. There are many things that we in the west tend to shut ourselves off from, spiritual sides to the Christian walk, that when we do open our self up to them we can truly find a new level of intimacy with God. One such practice, and one of my favorites is the act of meditation. I do not mean Tibetan meditation, but Christian biblical meditation. While these two forms of meditation have some similarities, they are quite opposite of one another, the purpose of tibetan meditation is to achieve mindfulness by focusing on breathing or chanting of a mantra to help one connect to their spirit, christian meditation however is about contemplating and thinking heavily on scripture. When a Christian meditates it is not to empty themselves, but to fill themselves up with the knowledge of God. When you devote time to the study of the word of God, letting tthe word of God play over in your mind as you seek out the meaning and the knowledge, this is meditation, and this is what fills us with the knowledge of God. Some call this prayerfully reading the word of God, but to meditate on the scriptures, and to pray heavily in the spirit to God brings us to such a closeness that truly changes the heart of the believer. It is God’s will that we open ourselves to spiritual gifts, that we can move in the fullness of God’s power and the fullness of the church. God’s church is a church that moves in power and the annointing of the Holy Spirit, that uses the gifts to edify each other and to advance the kingdom. The West has always placed a greater emphasis on the mind than the spirit, but we know that the mind can imagine a vain thing, the mind can be tricked, but in the spirit is life. As Christians we must learn to not only seek God with our minds, but to seek Him with our spirit as well. When our whole spirit seeks out God and prays to him is when we live in the fullness of Christ. Apostle Paul tells us that praying in tongues is great for the believer to help edify and grow his own spirit and further his individual walk with God, and can even be useful to to edify the church if theire be one who can interpret tongues. These gifts were not written and given only for those in ancient times, but rather God is the same yesterday today and tomorrow, He does not change, and His plan for us does not change either. Visions and dreams are still given to this day, we simply lack the faith to receive these gifts, which not only hurts ourselves, but also those we have been sent to help.

Amen.