I had come to a point in my life where I was frustrated. I was reading my Bible, going to church, and praying daily, but I still felt like I was failing in my spiritual walk and I didn’t know why. It seemed like almost every time the temptation to do the wrong thing came, as much as I would fight it, I would still fall to that temptation. I have known a number of youth that do all the things that a good Christian is suppose to do, yet have still been a slave to temptations of the enemy. Pornography, drugs, premarital sex, underage drinking, lying, bad relationships….and so on. But one day, I was in my car listening to the radio when a certain hip-hop song came on. Something vulgar was said about what that artist desired to do to a woman, and I just froze! For the first time in my life I realized what they were saying in that song was the same exact behavior I was trying so desperately stay away from. Then, I had a revelation! That in order for me to not give in to temptation, I cannot feed a predetermined behavior into my subconscious. It was then that I first understood the principle: we are designed to reproduce whatever we meditate.
The trap I see for most young people is that they are extremely disconnected with the importance of what they meditate. They have no idea that what inside of you forms the world outside of you. What you see and hear is what will start to shape your thinking and your behavior, whether you believe it or not. Secular media is consumed in such large quantities weekly, and the Word of God (and Christ-centered media) is limited to just a few minutes a day.
Meditation is a God given process that will cause a permanent change in your thinking. But the devil knows this too, so he uses the same concept to get you to adopt the principles of the Kingdom of Darkness…lying, stealing, cussing, alcoholism, drug abuse, sexual immorality, rebellion, pride, and reckless behavior. Sometimes you don't even know that you have adopted these behaviors until the results show up in your life. How do they show up in your life? Through your decisions.
The Bible says in Joshua 1:8 “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. (NKJV)” I want to make you aware that this was the only time in the whole bible where the word “success” was used. Notice, it was coupled with meditating the Word of God all the time. What ever you meditate will start to dominate your thoughts, decisions, conversation, and actions.
Meditating certain kinds of music and media will help you reproduce the same message that the media is giving you. If you like to watch a lot of scary movies that make you feel fear, you will start to see fear show up in your life. But it may not be fear of some serial killer, it may be fear of stepping out to achieve your dreams. The Enemy uses his message of fear to paralyze your progress. It takes courage to fulfill your dreams, and fear exterminates courage. Amazingly, I saw a study done one time on the Chicago area (and suburbs) showing a distinct correlation with the poverty stricken areas of the city consuming high amounts of fear-based movies. The most affluent areas had the lowest consumption of fear-based movies. Notice, fear is designed to keep a person from success. (source: Crain's Chicago Business)
One night after youth service a mother came up to me with her daughter because the girl that kept getting tempted to kill her little brother whom she loved dearly. No arguments, no angry tantrums, just random malicious thoughts. After some conversation, we finally found the problem. She loved scary movies, usually with lots of murder in them, and would play them while she slept. Once she cut that off...the thoughts ceased. Interesting right?
The trap I see for most young people is that they are extremely disconnected with the importance of what they meditate. They have no idea that what inside of you forms the world outside of you. What you see and hear is what will start to shape your thinking and your behavior, whether you believe it or not. Secular media is consumed in such large quantities weekly, and the Word of God (and Christ-centered media) is limited to just a few minutes a day.
Meditation is a God given process that will cause a permanent change in your thinking. But the devil knows this too, so he uses the same concept to get you to adopt the principles of the Kingdom of Darkness…lying, stealing, cussing, alcoholism, drug abuse, sexual immorality, rebellion, pride, and reckless behavior. Sometimes you don't even know that you have adopted these behaviors until the results show up in your life. How do they show up in your life? Through your decisions.
The Bible says in Joshua 1:8 “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. (NKJV)” I want to make you aware that this was the only time in the whole bible where the word “success” was used. Notice, it was coupled with meditating the Word of God all the time. What ever you meditate will start to dominate your thoughts, decisions, conversation, and actions.
Meditating certain kinds of music and media will help you reproduce the same message that the media is giving you. If you like to watch a lot of scary movies that make you feel fear, you will start to see fear show up in your life. But it may not be fear of some serial killer, it may be fear of stepping out to achieve your dreams. The Enemy uses his message of fear to paralyze your progress. It takes courage to fulfill your dreams, and fear exterminates courage. Amazingly, I saw a study done one time on the Chicago area (and suburbs) showing a distinct correlation with the poverty stricken areas of the city consuming high amounts of fear-based movies. The most affluent areas had the lowest consumption of fear-based movies. Notice, fear is designed to keep a person from success. (source: Crain's Chicago Business)
One night after youth service a mother came up to me with her daughter because the girl that kept getting tempted to kill her little brother whom she loved dearly. No arguments, no angry tantrums, just random malicious thoughts. After some conversation, we finally found the problem. She loved scary movies, usually with lots of murder in them, and would play them while she slept. Once she cut that off...the thoughts ceased. Interesting right?
RSS Feed