What the Bible says about Meditation on God's Creation
(From Forerunner Commentary)

Psalm 8:1-4

Other translations use words like "glorious," "majestic," and "to be admired" rather than "excellent" to express the feelings generated by meditating on how God is revealed by the heavens He created! The starry heavens stretched before David showcase the awesome and spectacular majesty of God.

Commenting on verse 1, the Soncino Commentary says that God's majesty is "rehearsed above the heavens." Rehearse can mean "to repeat" or "tell in detail." David tells us that God has invested the heavens with awesome splendor to direct man's mind to ponder the Creator's existence, majesty, and excellence. This thought also implies that He is just as majestic in demonstrating Himself on earth as He is in the heavens. What excellence do we see in earth and heaven? Power, order, beauty, loving providence, wisdom, reason, logic, and vastness of thinking.

David intended this psalm to direct our thinking toward God's greatness and puny man's insignificance. However, that awesome, majestic, glorious God is glorifying Himself in man! He has chosen what the world considers weak and foolish—us—to appreciate and respect His glory, His name.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Third Commandment (1997)

Psalm 19:2

David suggests that this teaching goes on day after day after day. It is out there for us to meditate on.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Psalm 23 (Part One)

Psalm 34:11

Notice that the fear of God does not come naturally; it must be learned. We are not born with it already existing within. It is a vital quality given through contact with God and someone qualified to teach it, as David surely was.

If we study and meditate on Him, the Scriptures will reveal that God is supreme in everything, including in qualities like love, power, wisdom, forgiveness, mercy, patience, kindness, etc. God is sovereign over all. These virtues alone provide multiple reasons for fearing Him.

In this church, the overwhelming majority of our messages address our responsibilities to the Creator, for this is always a need that must be filled in us. However, what about God? Has He no rights to be a solidly entrenched reality in our minds, always serving as the guide to our lives?

How can we possibly live by a truly vital faith if a strong and true awareness of the reality of His oversight and presence is not our guide in every aspect of life each day? After all, who is regulating affairs on planet earth today—God or the Devil? Intellectually, a person will quickly concede that God reigns supreme in heaven, but that He does so over the world is almost universally denied. How is this denied? Titus 1:15-16 provides the answer:

To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled. They profess to know God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good work.

Despite their claims to be Christian, people's consistent disobedience discloses the falsehood that they are truly Christians and that God is a reality in their lives.

In our time, because of the influence of evolution in education and the weakness of religious teaching in the churches, it is not only commonly denied that God created everything by personal and direct action, but few also believe, as proved by their conduct, that He has any immediate concern about regulating the works of His own hands. Everything is assumed to be ordered according to the impersonal and abstract laws of nature.

The churches contain many members who are either outright Deists or incipient ones. A Deist believes God created the world and then stepped away, taking no interest in its operations. We must not allow ourselves to have this attitude. We have to know and obey what we know—that is our responsibility as a Christian.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Living By Faith and God's Sovereignty

Psalm 92:5

God's works and thoughts are worthy of our gratitude. His creation is marvelous in its beauty, detail, and usefulness, and His thoughts are deeper than any human being can comprehend. If we consider the care in which He created the universe, we can catch a glimpse of the same care He employs in creating children for His Family.

Staff
Thanksgiving

Psalm 111:2

The psalmist uses sought out in the sense of "meditated upon" or "thought about." All of us ought to be searching out the works of the Lord—whether it be in history in what He did for His people or in salvation in the redemption of His people and how He supplies all the needs of His people.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Covenants, Grace, and Law (Part Ten)

Psalm 111:7

"The works of His hands" could be the creation or what He does in redemptive situations. "Verity" is truth, and "judgment" describes how soundly and wisely God's works are thought out. That "all His precepts are sure," indicating longevity, hints at their eternal nature.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Covenants, Grace, and Law (Part Ten)


 

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