God gives us the power of imagination to affect the reality of our lives – including the physical reality of our body. This kind of Christian meditation brings the transcendent experience of God into your mind and into your body so that you can replace anxiety, insecurity, stress and tension with the better and truer imagination of God’s infinite and intimate presence and love for YOU.

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Today we’re going to meditate on…

Romans 11:36 (NIV)

For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.

“For from him and through him and for him are all things.” We recalibrate our lives and our body with reality when we reintegrate how we see ourselves with the truth of this verse.

Let’s use our imagination to feel the truth of this verse into our entire body and our soul.

“For from him and through him and for him are all things.” And Acts 17:28 says, “In him we live and move and have our being.” 

Christian meditation uses biblically guided imagination to experience your utter dependence upon God’s life-giving Spirit even at the cellular level. 

“For from him and through him and for him are all things.”

Use your imagination to feel God’s Life-Giving Spirit in your body. This is mysterious, but it’s also real. Imagine the Spirit that gives Life flowing through your veins throughout your whole body. This is the language of the Bible.

Every cell in your body is given life from him, through him, and for him. This is reality. This is the realist reality in your life right now in this moment. And you can see this reality by using your biblically guided imagination.

Your imagination is powerful enough to greatly affect your body. This is part of the power of our soul - body connection. 

Hand warming

As further evidence that your imagination affects bodily processes, it’s actually possible to heat your hands—just using your imagination. I’ve actually done it! (You’d need a stress thermometer.) 

In the same way your beliefs and feelings and thoughts throughout your day are affecting your body. 

Perhaps putting unbelief into your body. Worry. Fear. Insecurities. Threats. Your anger fantasies. Your misinterpreted narratives of your relationships with people.

But the opposite can be true too. You can put the truth of the forever God being your God forever into your body throughout the day as well.

“For from him and through him and for him are all things.” 

“In him we live and move and have our being.” 

Use your imagination to feel that truth throughout your entire body. And with each breath out use your imagination to feel God‘s presence inside you giving life to every cell in your body.

With your imagination on God‘s presence and in your body, you’re feeling a kind of transcendent sense of quiet. You’re feeling a sense of wonder at the God Who created the universe residing inside your body. Giving life to your body. And because Christ is in you you are one with God right now in this present moment.

Romans 11:36 (NIV)

For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.

You live for God’s glory. And when you do, you glory in God’s glory. His glory becomes your glory forever. 

Like when we fee the “glory” of our sports teams. 

But when we focus on our own glory, that’s a dead-end kind of glory. Our lives get smaller. Less glorious. Because most people can see through it and we look ridiculous. When our own glory feels threatened — this is the voice of the false self. A false glory. This is often what brings anxiety. Anger fantasies. Self protection. We are forgetting the glory of Romans 11:36.

Romans 11:36 (NIV)

For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.

The glory you glory in when the forever glorious God is your God forever. 

Living for God‘s glory instead of your own puts peace and joy and well-being into your body. Your body was created for God’s glory. Not to try to strive for your own. When you strive for your own glory that’s what puts tension and stress and anxiety — maybe even certain kinds of chronic pain — into your body. Because your body can’t live incongruently with the reality of the universe. 

So let’s come back to your breathing – the rhythm of your breathing — and feeling your body from within. And using your biblically guided imagination to feel the reality of God‘s presence and glory giving life and joy into your whole body from within. 

Imagine this in your body right now. All throughout your body. Every cell. 

“For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.”

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Our audio engineer is Diego Huaman.

This podcast is a ministry of The Crossing, a church in Columbia, Missouri, a college town where the flagship campus of the University of Missouri is located.