Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life with Pastor Dave Cover

This is Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life – a time for you to relax your body, refocus your mind, and to re-imagine and re-narrate your life to a truer reality. I’m Dave Cover. I want to help you with Christian meditation where you can break through all the distractions and experience God’s presence through biblically guided imagination. 

If your podcast app is set to skip the silent sections, disable that in your podcast app for this podcast.

In our last few episodes we looked at what Moses tells the people of Israel. 

Deuteronomy 30:19-20 (NIV) 

“Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life….”

“Now choose life, so that you…may live.” “For the LORD is your life!”

“LORD” in all uppercase letters in our English Bibles indicates that in Hebrew God’s name, Yahweh, is used (for example, Exodus 3:14-15; Isaiah 42:8). Yahweh is the ancient Hebrew verb form for “HE IS.” God’s name, Yahweh, is used more than any other term for God in the Hebrew scriptures. More than “God” is used. 

God’s name is filled with wonder and mystery and transcendence for us to meditate on using our biblically guided imagination.

When we see God’s name, HE IS, in the Hebrew scriptures (what we call the Old Testament), four important aspects of God are repeatedly emphasized. 

We often meditate on God‘s name in this podcast because it is the key to experiencing God as HE IS. 

So imagine – envision – this reality. He is the Source of all being; he is the Giver of your life and sustains your life at every moment; he is the one who “inhabits eternity” (Isaiah 57:15), and so has the eternal perspective in all your life’s circumstances; and he is infinitely, intimately, 100% present with you at every moment and in control of every circumstance in your life.

Who can you share this podcast with? If you found this episode helpful, consider sharing it on social media or texting it to a friend you think might benefit from it.

Follow Dave Cover on X (Twitter) @davecover

Follow A Bigger Life on X @ABiggerLifePod

Our audio engineer is Matthew Matlack.

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.

This is Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life – a time for you to relax your body, refocus your mind, and to re-imagine and re-narrate your life to a truer reality. I’m Dave Cover. I want to help you with Christian meditation where you can break through all the distractions and experience God’s presence through biblically guided imagination. 

Look for new once-per-week episodes each Tuesday during the summer.

If your podcast app is set to skip the silent sections, disable that in your podcast app for this podcast.

In our last few episodes we looked at what Moses tells the people of Israel. 

Deuteronomy 30:19-20 (NIV) 

“Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life….”

“Now choose life, so that you…may live.” “For the LORD is your life!”

God’s will for you has always been about Life.

That’s the whole reason Jesus came…

John 10:10-11 (NIV)

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”

As Jesus said in John 5:25-26 (NIV):

“Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.”

Life. Joy. Love. That’s God‘s eternal will for you and God is the only Source where Life is found. So choose Life, “now,” in this moment.

Who can you share this podcast with? If you found this episode helpful, consider sharing it on social media or texting it to a friend you think might benefit from it.

Follow Dave Cover on X (Twitter) @davecover

Follow A Bigger Life on X @ABiggerLifePod

Our audio engineer is Matthew Matlack.

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. 

This is Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life – a time for you to relax your body, refocus your mind, and to re-imagine and re-narrate your life to a truer reality. I’m Dave Cover. I want to help you with Christian meditation where you can break through all the distractions and experience God’s presence through biblically guided imagination. 

Look for new once-per-week episodes each Tuesday during the summer.

If your podcast app is set to skip the silent sections, disable that in your podcast app for this podcast.

Often anxiety and tension rise in our life when our focus gets fragmented and our priorities get conflicted and we feel like our lives are getting chaotic and important things are being threatened in some way.

In our last couple of episodes we looked at what Moses tells the people of Israel. And I think it’s a great passage to meditate on because I think it helps us defragment our priorities and helps us put our focus in the right place.

Deuteronomy 30:19-20 (NIV) 

“Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life….”

What’s interesting is that the Hebrew word here for “hold fast” is the exact same Hebrew word used in Genesis 2:24, where the husband “is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.” It means to be one with. It’s the same idea as Jesus prays for all those who will believe in him in John 17:21, “... that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us….” To hold fast to the LORD is to see your life in connection with God, and re-imagine yourself – your life – in a state of complete oneness with God by his Holy Spirit within you (1 Cor 6:19). 

One way to hold fast to the LORD your God is to envision yourself clinging to him right now in this moment as your Life, your Security, your Righteousness, your Strength, your Calm Confidence, your Sure Future.

Jesus says to us in…

John 15:5 (NIV)

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

NOTHING.

Who can you share this podcast with? If you found this episode helpful, consider sharing it on social media or texting it to a friend you think might benefit from it.

Follow Dave Cover on X (Twitter) @davecover

Follow A Bigger Life on X @ABiggerLifePod

Our audio engineer is Matthew Matlack.

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. 

This is Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life – a time for you to relax your body, refocus your mind, and to re-imagine and re-narrate your life to a truer reality. I’m Dave Cover. I want to help you with Christian meditation where you can break through all the distractions and experience God’s presence through biblically guided imagination. 

Our summer schedule has begun. Look for new once-per-week episodes each Tuesday during the summer.

If your podcast app is set to skip the silent sections, disable that in your podcast app for this podcast.

Often anxiety and tension rise in our life when our focus gets fragmented and our priorities get conflicted and we feel like our lives are getting chaotic and important things are being threatened in some way.

In our last couple of episodes we looked at what Moses tells the people of Israel. And I think it’s a great passage to meditate on because I think it helps us defragment our priorities and helps us put our focus in the right place.

Deuteronomy 30:19-20 (NIV) 

“Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life….”

These verbs in this verse — love, listen, hold fast — describe Jesus’s relationship with God as his father. And the reason they describe Jesus’s relationship with God as his father is because he was confident in the father’s love for him. That was the foundation of his entire life.

The idea of loving God and listening to his voice seems undesirable if our view of God is that he is distant and hard to please and easy to disappoint.

When Moses uses the phrase, the LORD your God, that’s the language of intimate relationship that God has for his covenant people. He has committed himself to forever be your God. In fact God‘s name, Yahweh, was a name he only gave to his covenant people.

If you don’t see the biblical view of God – his love for you and his taking the initiative to have a relationship with you — your image of God is going to be sterile and unattractive.

But Jesus says in…

John 15:9-11 (NIV)

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”

Who can you share this podcast with? If you found this episode helpful, consider sharing it on social media or texting it to a friend you think might benefit from it.

Follow Dave Cover on X (Twitter) @davecover

Follow A Bigger Life on X @ABiggerLifePod

Our audio engineer is Matthew Matlack.

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. 

This is Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life – a time for you to relax your body, refocus your mind, and to re-imagine and re-narrate your life to a truer reality. I’m Dave Cover. I want to help you with Christian meditation where you can break through all the distractions and experience God’s presence through biblically guided imagination. 

Our summer schedule has begun. Look for new once-per-week episodes each Tuesday during the summer.

If your podcast app is set to skip the silent sections, disable that in your podcast app for this podcast.

Often anxiety and tension rise in our life when our focus gets fragmented and we feel like our lives are getting chaotic and important things are being threatened in some way.

In our last episode we looked at what Moses tells the people of Israel. And I think it’s a great passage to meditate on because I think it helps us defragment our priorities and helps us put our focus in the right place.

Deuteronomy 30:19-20 (NIV) 

“Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life….”

All these verbs — love, listen, hold fast — describe Jesus’s relationship with the Father.

That you may love the LORD your God. Real Christian faith – biblical faith – is not as much about believing something as it is about believing Someone. A focus on Someone more than something. A relationship. We constantly have to remind ourselves to keep our relationship with God as our focus in everything.

To love the LORD, like all biblical “love,” is not primarily an emotion we should try to muster up toward God as much as a choice of devotion to him as our God. So choosing love is like choosing life. “I choose to love God today.” To be devoted to God. “I am a lover of God.” Emotion comes with time. But devotion is the choice. 

So take a deep breath and speak these words to yourself: “I want the LORD to be my God. I choose to surrender my life right now, in this moment, to God who is worthy of my life and worthy of my trust and worthy of my devotion.”

… 

Who can you share this podcast with? If you found this episode helpful, consider sharing it on social media or texting it to a friend you think might benefit from it.

Follow Dave Cover on X (Twitter) @davecover

Follow A Bigger Life on X @ABiggerLifePod

Our audio engineer is Matthew Matlack.

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. 

This is Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life – a time for you to relax your body, refocus your mind, and to re-imagine and re-narrate your life to a truer reality. I’m Dave Cover. I want to help you with Christian meditation where you can break through all the distractions and experience God’s presence through biblically guided imagination. 

Our summer schedule has begun. Look for new once-per-week episodes each Tuesday during the summer.

If your podcast app is set to skip the silent sections, disable that in your podcast app for this podcast.

Deuteronomy 30:19-20 (NIV) 

“Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life….”

To choose life begins with choosing—hitting the switch inside your head – “I want to choose life and life is found only in connection with God.” It’s a switch you have to hit over and over. Because it regularly gets turned off by default in this Genesis 3 world. 

So doing this is not a one time thing. It’s a continual kind of thing. Done best in repeated/habitual moments of Christian meditation. 

“LORD” in all uppercase letters in our English Bibles indicates that in Hebrew God’s name, Yahweh, is used (for example, Exodus 3:14-15; Isaiah 42:8). Yahweh is the ancient Hebrew verb form for “HE IS.” God’s name, Yahweh, is used more than any other term for God in the Hebrew scriptures. More than “God” is used. 

When we survey the various truths associated with God’s name, HE IS, in the Hebrew scriptures (what we call the Old Testament), four important aspects of God are emphasized. 

We often meditate on God‘s name in this podcast because it is the key to experiencing God as HE IS. God’s name is filled with wonder and mystery and transcendence for us to meditate on using our biblically guided imagination.

So imagine – envision – this reality. He is the Source of all being; he is the Giver of your life and sustains your life at every moment; he is the one who “inhabits eternity” (Isaiah 57:15), and so has the eternal perspective in all your life’s circumstances; and he is infinitely, intimately, 100% present with you at every moment and in control of every circumstance in your life.

Who can you share this podcast with? If you found this episode helpful, consider sharing it on social media or texting it to a friend you think might benefit from it.

Follow Dave Cover on X (Twitter) @davecover

Follow A Bigger Life on X @ABiggerLifePod

Our audio engineer is Matthew Matlack.

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. 

This is Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life – a time for you to relax your body, refocus your mind, and re-narrate your life. I’m Dave Cover. I want to help you with Christian meditation where you can break through all the distractions and experience God’s presence through biblically guided imagination. 

Our summer schedule has begun. Look for new once-per-week episodes each Tuesday during the summer.

If your podcast app is set to skip the silent sections, disable that in your podcast app for this podcast.

Psalm 16:2 ESV

I say to the LORD, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.”

Psalms 31:14-16 (NIV)

“But I trust in you, LORD; I say, ‘You are my God.’ My times are in your hands.”

Psalms 140:6 (NIV) 

I say to the LORD, “You are my God.”

Hear, LORD, my cry for mercy.

“Have mercy on me, a sinner” is what the tax collector says in Jesus’s parable in Luke 18:13. And Jesus says he’s the one who went away justified before God (Luke 18:14).

Psalm 142:5 NIV

I cry to you, LORD; I say, “You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.”

“LORD” in all uppercase letters in our English Bibles indicates that in Hebrew God’s name, Yahweh, is used (for example, Exodus 3:14-15; Isaiah 42:8). Yahweh is the ancient Hebrew verb form for “HE IS.” God’s name, Yahweh, is used more than any other term for God in the Hebrew scriptures. More than “God” is used. 

When we survey the various truths associated with God’s name, HE IS, in the Hebrew scriptures (what we call the Old Testament), four important aspects of God are emphasized. 

We often meditate on God‘s name in this podcast because it is the key to experiencing God as HE IS. God’s name is filled with wonder and mystery and transcendence for us to meditate on using our biblically guided imagination.

So imagine – envision – this reality. He is the Source of all being; he is the Giver of your life and sustains your life at every moment; he is the one who “inhabits eternity” (Isaiah 57:15), and so has the eternal perspective in all your life’s circumstances; and he is infinitely, intimately, 100% present with you at every moment and in control of every circumstance in your life.

Who can you share this podcast with? If you found this episode helpful, consider sharing it on social media or texting it to a friend you think might benefit from it.

Follow Dave Cover on X (Twitter) @davecover

Follow A Bigger Life on X @ABiggerLifePod

Our audio engineer is Matthew Matlack.

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. 

This is Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life – a time for you to relax your body, refocus your mind, and re-narrate your life. I’m Dave Cover. I want to help you with Christian meditation where you can break through all the distractions and experience God’s presence through biblically guided imagination. 

Our summer schedule has begun. Look for new once-per-week episodes each Tuesday during the summer.

If your podcast app is set to skip the silent sections, disable that in your podcast app for this podcast.

Psalm 142:5 NIV

I cry to you, LORD; I say, “You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.”

Psalm 142:5 CSB

I cry to you, LORD; I say, “You are my shelter, my portion in the land of the living.”

Luke 21:16-18 NIV

16 You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. 17 Everyone will hate you because of me. 18 But not a hair of your head will perish.

“LORD” in all uppercase letters in our English Bibles indicates that in Hebrew God’s name, Yahweh, is used (for example, Exodus 3:14-15; Isaiah 42:8). Yahweh is the ancient Hebrew verb form for “HE IS.” God’s name, Yahweh, is used more than any other term for God in the Hebrew scriptures. More than “God” is used. 

When we survey the various truths associated with God’s name, HE IS, in the Hebrew scriptures (what we call the Old Testament), four important aspects of God are emphasized. 

We often meditate on God‘s name in this podcast because it is the key to experiencing God as HE IS. God’s name is filled with wonder and mystery and transcendence for us to meditate on using our biblically guided imagination.

So imagine – envision – this reality. He is the Source of all being; he is the Giver of your life and sustains your life at every moment; he is the one who “inhabits eternity” (Isaiah 57:15), and so has the eternal perspective in all your life’s circumstances; and he is infinitely, intimately, 100% present with you at every moment and in control of every circumstance in your life.

Who can you share this podcast with? If you found this episode helpful, consider sharing it on social media or texting it to a friend you think might benefit from it.

Follow Dave Cover on X (Twitter) @davecover

Follow A Bigger Life on X @ABiggerLifePod

Our audio engineer is Matthew Matlack.

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. 

This is Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life – a time for you to relax, refocus, and re-narrate your life. I’m Dave Cover. I want to help you with Christian meditation where you can break through all the distractions and experience God’s presence through biblically guided imagination. 

Our summer schedule has begun. Look for new once-per-week episodes each Tuesday during the summer.

If your podcast app is set to skip the silent sections, disable that in your podcast app for this podcast.

Psalms 140:6 (NIV) 

I say to the LORD, “You are my God.”

Hear, LORD, my cry for mercy.

One way to think of mercy is not getting the punishment you deserve. Whereas grace is getting the blessing you don’t deserve. 

We don’t want to get too technical with these kinds of things because this distinction is not always what the biblical authors are thinking – but one way to think of mercy is the death of Jesus on the cross and one way to think of grace is the resurrection of Jesus. The cross takes the punishment you deserve. The resurrection gives you the blessing you don’t deserve.

The cry for mercy is the acknowledgment of your desperate need for God‘s forgiveness. To atone for your sin through Jesus on the cross. It’s an emotional disposition of humbling ourselves before God and acknowledging that we have nothing in ourselves to put our confidence in except to cry out for God’s mercy. “Have mercy on me, a sinner” is what the tax collector says in Jesus’s parable in Luke 18:13. And Jesus says he’s the one who went away justified before God (Luke 18:14). “For those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

To me at least, there’s a kind of relief that comes from knowing that my only hope is to cry out for God’s mercy. Knowing that there’s nothing I can do to atone for my sin other than humble myself and cling to Jesus on the cross. That that’s my only good option.

“LORD” in all uppercase letters in our English Bibles indicates that in Hebrew God’s name, Yahweh, is used (for example, Exodus 3:14-15; Isaiah 42:8). Yahweh is the ancient Hebrew verb form for “HE IS.” God’s name, Yahweh, is used more than any other term for God in the Hebrew scriptures. More than “God” is used. 

When we survey the various truths associated with God’s name, HE IS, in the Hebrew scriptures (what we call the Old Testament), four important aspects of God are emphasized. 

We often meditate on God‘s name in this podcast because it is the key to experiencing God as HE IS. God’s name is filled with wonder and mystery and transcendence for us to meditate on using our biblically guided imagination.

So imagine – envision – this reality. He is the Source of all being; he is the Giver of your life and sustains your life at every moment; he is the one who “inhabits eternity” (Isaiah 57:15), and so has the eternal perspective in all your life’s circumstances; and he is infinitely, intimately, 100% present with you at every moment and in control of every circumstance in your life.

Who can you share this podcast with? If you found this episode helpful, consider sharing it on social media or texting it to a friend you think might benefit from it.

Follow Dave Cover on X (Twitter) @davecover

Follow A Bigger Life on X @ABiggerLifePod

Our audio engineer is Matthew Matlack.

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. 

This is Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life – a time for you to relax, refocus, and re-narrate your life. I’m Dave Cover. I want to help you with Christian meditation where you can break through all the distractions and experience God’s presence through biblically guided imagination. 

Our summer schedule has begun. Look for new once-per-week episodes each Tuesday during the summer.

If your podcast app is set to skip the silent sections, disable that in your podcast app for this podcast.

“LORD” in all uppercase letters in our English Bibles indicates that in Hebrew God’s name, Yahweh, is used (for example, Exodus 3:14-15; Isaiah 42:8). Yahweh is the ancient Hebrew verb form for “HE IS.” God’s name, Yahweh, is used more than any other term for God in the Hebrew scriptures. More than “God” is used. 

When we survey the various truths associated with God’s name, HE IS, in the Hebrew scriptures (what we call the Old Testament), four important aspects of God are emphasized. 

We often meditate on God‘s name in this podcast because it is the key to experiencing God as HE IS. God’s name is filled with wonder and mystery and transcendence for us to meditate on using our biblically guided imagination.

So imagine – envision – this reality. He is the Source of all being; he is the Giver of your life and sustains your life at every moment; he is the one who “inhabits eternity” (Isaiah 57:15), and so has the eternal perspective in all your life’s circumstances; and he is infinitely, intimately, 100% present with you at every moment and in control of every circumstance in your life.

Psalms 16:2 (NIV) 

“I say to the LORD, ‘You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.’”

Psalms 31:14-16 (NIV)

“But I trust in you, LORD; I say, ‘You are my God.’ My times are in your hands.”

Psalm 91:2 NIV

I will say of the LORD, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”

Who can you share this podcast with? If you found this episode helpful, consider sharing it on social media or texting it to a friend you think might benefit from it.

Follow Dave Cover on X (Twitter) @davecover

Follow A Bigger Life on X @ABiggerLifePod

Our audio engineer is Matthew Matlack.

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.