Christian Meditation is a quiet time for you to re-integrate and re-calibrate your mind with your body. And re-integrate and re-calibrate your mind and body with God‘s presence with you and in you. Remember the quote from the apostle Paul in Acts 17:28 – In him you live and move and have your being.

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Remember the reality of what’s called neural plasticity – your brain is always rewiring itself constantly based upon how you use it — what you see, what you say, what you do, what you think and feel — neurons that fire together wire together — so if certain neurons have fired together a lot then they have wired together a lot and made what’s like a worn path in the snow where your brain gets really good at something that you repeat a lot — like playing the piano or playing guitar or typing on a keyboard — like we discussed in the last episode — sometimes your brain gets really good at feeling pain in a part of your body even though there’s no longer damage or harm there, or sometimes your brain gets really good at responding with anxiety or insecurity or fear or anger in certain situations or feeling threatened in certain situations because you have trained your brain through repeatedly responding that way in those situations. 

So certain kinds of meditation or mindfulness are a way of remapping your brain to your whole body to help it re-integrate and re-calibrate to your mind and soul. So when you focus on specific areas of your body you are remapping your brain to your body. 

And when you focus on relaxing and feeling (becoming aware of) your entire body like we do in this kind of meditation, every brain and pain specialist and psychologist I’ve read says it is calming and even resetting to your central nervous system. But in Christian meditation we go even further than that and also focus on experiencing, through our imagination, the reality of God‘s presence in your body as the Bible emphasizes in so many places. Remember — neurons that fire together wire together — and so your brain will get really good at remembering to feel your body and associating that also with remembering God‘s presence in your body and presence with you always. So that in times where you might usually feel threatened or typically get anxious or angry or stressed – doing a quick meditation to feel your body will also associate in your brain a remembrance of God‘s presence in you and his love and control in every situation. So in typical situations where you would normally worry or become anxious or insecure or angry or frustrated or even hopeless, instead you are reminded that God is present, he is in this, and you can trust him.

This is why in this Christian meditation podcast we are always associating a kind of body relaxation and mindfulness with pictures the Bible gives us to imagine our embodied spiritual reality. And we use our imagination to see and feel this unseen embodied reality, and physically experience our embodied connection with God.

Psalms 104:30 (ESV)

“When you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground.”

Psalms 104:29 (ESV)

“When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust.”

Imagine the Spirit sending forth his life in you and renewing your body.

The apostle Peter refers to Jesus as the author of life (Acts 3:15). So imagine the author of life indwelling your entire body as his Holy Temple (1 Cor 6:19) — even at the cellular level in your body — with his Life and Love and Power and Eternal Presence and Glory. 

Peter goes on to say later…

Acts 3:20 (ESV)

“…That times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.” 

Acts 17:28 (ESV)

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

Imagine your whole body being connected to God’s existence–creating, life-giving, eternal transcendence as the I AM. 

John 7:38-39 (NIV)

“‘Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.’ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.”

Imagine God’s Spirit in your inner being right now – strengthening your body. Strengthening your soul. Strengthening your life with the riches of his glory.

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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.