Where do our foul thoughts, speech and actions proceed from? They have their provenance in our hearts. The Bible likens the heart to soil, just as the weeds and prickles which overrun our gardens spring from the soil, so the issues of life spring from the heart. The reason why we gaze at things we shouldn’t, why we react to people and situations poorly, why we waste so much time, why we find our lives plagued by covetousness, lust and pride is because sin is tolerated and even nurtured in our hearts. The poisoned soil produces poisoned fruit.
Of necessity the psalmist says “Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You” (Psalm 119:11). Real change begins on the inside and works itself out. Paul calls it transformation (Rom 12:1). Purify the fount and the stream will be clean.
What does it mean to hide the Word in our hearts? It means to store it or hide it as one would store away or hide treasure. Another way of putting it is found in In Psalm 1 where the psalmist speaks of meditating day and night upon God’s law. Firstly we note the frequency – he is continually filling His heart with the Word. Secondly we note that it is not a casual reading but meditating. He seeks to understand it; apply it; memorise it. To use eating as an analogy, he chews, swallows and digests it.
How do we hide God’s Word in soil so resistant? We need the ministry of the Holy Spirit to do it for us. Our responsibility is to meditate, and to pray as Paul prayed, “…………that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding” (Col 1:9). It is the Holy Spirit’s work but He doesn’t operate independent of our labours.
We will make no progress in the Christian life if we are strangers to hiding / meditating / praying over the Word of God in our lives. On the contrary we will be charactered by immaturity and continual sin.
“There are times when solitude is better than society, and silence is wiser than speech. We should be better Christians if we were more alone, waiting upon God, and gathering through meditation on His Word spiritual strength for labour in his service. We ought to muse upon the things of God, because we thus get the real nutriment out of them. . . . Why is it that some Christians, although they hear many sermons, make but slow advances in the divine life? Because they neglect their closets, and do not thoughtfully meditate on God’s Word. They love the wheat, but they do not grind it; they would have the corn, but they will not go forth into the fields to gather it; the fruit hangs upon the tree, but they will not pluck it; the water flows at their feet, but they will not stoop to drink it. From such folly deliver us, O Lord. . . .”
– C.H. Spurgeon