*** w57 8/1 p. 468 pars. 4-6 Will You Get to Live on Earth Forever? *** the Bible that you will “quit being fashioned after this system of things, but be transformed by making your mind over, that you may prove to yourselves the good and acceptable and complete will of God.” By this study “you should put away the old personality which conforms to your former course of conduct” and “you should be made new in the force actuating your mind, and should put on the new personality which was created according to God’s will in true righteousness and loving-kindness.” Then you will live “no more for the desires of men, but for God’s will. For the time that has passed by is sufficient for you to have worked out the will of the nations when you proceeded in deeds of loose conduct, lusts, excesses with wine, revelries, drinking matches, and idolatries that are without legal restraint. Because you do not continue running with them in this course to the same low sink of debauchery, they are puzzled and go on speaking abusively of you. But these people will render an account to the one ready to judge those living and those dead.” However, your study and changed way of thinking and acting will deliver you from Jehovah’s destructive judgments at Armageddon.—Rom. 12:2; Eph. 4:22-24; 1 Pet. 4:2-5, NW. 5 One aspect of study that is woefully neglected today is meditation. The Bible frequently counsels us to do it. Joshua was told to take the book of the law and “meditate therein day and night,” or, more accurately expressed, “in an undertone read in it day and night.” This reading in an undertone is like talking to yourself, an audible musing, and since it is slower than reading to yourself it keeps the idea on the mind longer to soak in and be absorbed more. Moreover, it enters the mind in two ways, through both the eye and the ear, which impresses it on the mind with greater force. It is said of the happy man: “In the law of Jehovah is his delight, and in his law doth he talk with himself [soliloquise, margin] day and night. So doth he become like a tree planted beside channels of waters, that yieldeth its fruit in its season.” Taking in Jehovah’s waters of truth will enable us to bring forth Christian fruitage. We should copy this psalmist’s example: “I commune with my heart in the night; I meditate and search my spirit.”—Josh. 1:8, NW; Ps. 1:2, 3, RoPss; 77:6, RS. 6 Before talking to others it is best to talk to ourselves, to soliloquize. This will impress the truths on our own mind for the guidance of our tongue. Such meditation and self-preparation was done by Christ Jesus, the Greater David: “Of the glorious splendor of thy majesty, and of thy wondrous works, I will meditate,” or, “soliloquise.” During Jesus’ forty-day fast and isolation in the wilderness after his baptism he meditated, trying to take in the full meaning of the things that the opened heavens had bared to his view. This meditation fortified him for what was ahead. The Bible shows that from time to time Jesus sought solitude for meditation and prayer: “He went up into the mountain by himself,” and, “He continued in retirement in the deserts and praying.” But it was difficult for Jesus to get the solitude he needed for meditation and prayer: “He went out and proceeded to a lonely place. But the crowds began hunting about for him and came out as far as he was,” and, “Early in the morning, while it was still dark, he rose up and went outside and left for a lonely place,” but “those with him hunted him down and found him.” To avoid city crowds “he continued outside in lonely places. Yet they kept coming to him
Posted on: Tue, 25 Jun 2013 23:21:22 +0000
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