PSALM 119:99 What is meditation? It's reading the Word, then

closing your physical eyes and thinking about what you've read until you can see it with the spiritual eyes of your heart— your imagination.

Inside First, Then Outside

John 14:12 is a powerful verse, but you need to see it in your heart before you can experience it for

yourself.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.

it. Sit down, close your Bible, and pray, "Lord, this says that as a believer in You, I will do the same works You did—and even greater." Ponder yourself doing the works that Jesus did. With your mind, start seeing yourself healing the sick, cleansing the lepers, and expelling demons. See yourself laying hands on someone who's dead and see them come back to life. See the blind receiving sight and the deaf hearing. Then say, "That's what Jesus told me to do. Since I'm a believer, I'm going to see these things come to pass." If you would meditate on that, you'd have more under¬standing than all of your teachers. Your spirit would begin to open up and you'd start seeing things with your heart. You'd hear God speaking to you in your heart and leading you to do certain things. This is how it works.

Until you see it on the inside, you can't see it on the outside.

"What Am I Preaching?"

I used John 14:12 to preach a message in a

Wednesday night service once in Corpus Christi, Texas. I left the next day, but the pastor had listened and meditated on that verse the rest of the week. On Sunday morning, he stood up and preached on John 14:12 again, saying, "We're going to see the dead raised. I've been meditating on this and I've

going to happen!"

While he was preaching this, a man stood up on the side, walked forward, grabbed his heart, and fell over dead. They had a nurse in the audience. She came up, checked his vitals, and said, "He's dead. There's no pulse." They tried CPR. They called the fire station, which—by the way—was just across the street. Normally, the emergency personnel would have been there almost instantaneously. But this time it took them twenty-five minutes.

Since they had already tried CPR, the guy was gone, and the service was ruined, the pastor didn't know what to do. With this dead man laying at the front of the church, he finally said, "Let's pray." As they

started to pray, he exclaimed, "What am I preaching? We're going to see the dead raised. This guy is dead." So he walked over and spoke to him, and this guy rose up from the dead—right as the paramedics walked in!

After taking him to the hospital and examining him, they declared him totally healthy and let him go. This guy had to catch a taxi back to the church. He made the pastor pay the fare, saying, "I didn't want to go to the hospital in the first place. You made me go!" So they saw this man raised from the dead.

How did that happen? First of all, they started meditating on that Word.

Exercise Your Mind

I'm not trying to scold anyone. I just want to make it clear that God isn't our problem. We're our problem. Very few believers meditate on the Word day and night like it says to in Joshua 1:8. "Come on Andrew, not everyone is a preacher like you. Somebody has to work. I can't meditate on the Word day and night." Yes, you can.

The same part of you that worries also meditates. Worry is nothing but meditation on something bad. You can meditate on the things of God and still do your job. In fact, you'll do it even better. You can keep your mind stayed on God. You can bring every thought into captivity and under obedience to Christ. You don't have to be a minister to meditate on the Word day and night.

Most preachers are on call twenty-four hours a day and they have so many things coming at them. It's hard to spend time meditating on the Word when you're a minister. There are so many other things that need to be done. So don't give me this "It doesn't work for everyone else" junk. The Bible says that you can bring every thought into captivity and under obedience. (2 Cor. 10:5.) God wouldn't have

commanded you to meditate on the Word day and night if you couldn't do it. You can do it.

exercised. In some people, they're nearly atrophied. We sit down in front of a television and turn it on and let it do the thinking for us so we won't have to put forth any effort. Reading the news¬paper is too much effort for some folks. We just want to sit down and have someone give it to us intravenously. It takes time and effort to exercise your mind. But you can get to a place where it'll respond to you and do what you want it to. You can exercise your mind.

Read With Your Heart

Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way.

PSALM 119:104