“This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” Joshua 1:8
If I was a multi-millionaire and guaranteed you would be successful in business if you learned my system of doing things at no cost to you, would you take the time and follow my instructions? If I was a health and fitness guru that was 100 years old and looked and acted like a 20 year old, would you follow my free advice to live a long life? People do listen and follow people’s advice for happiness, health, beauty and success all the time. They do not even have to have these credentials to be followed and copied.
It seems to me, that when God gives such an incredible promise such as, meditate on my Law day and night and I will give you success, Christians should be clamoring, and stampeding to God’s Word to get this promised success! I thought everybody wanted a successful life, great marriage, prosperous business, etc.
The eternal, all powerful, all knowing, just, gracious, loving God’s advice has got to be pretty useful. Better than any “double your money back guarantee” I’ve ever heard of. Now obviously the pagans do not believe in God and so His book would have no attraction to them. But, supposedly Christians feel differently than everyone else about God and consider His Word as truth, yes, absolute truth.
What about you? Since God guarantees success, do you want to find out the secret? Meditation is the key, so obviously we must examine this concept in God’s Word.
Meditation does not mean we stare at a candle and blank out our thoughts. Meditation does not mean to read the Bible everyday. Meditation does not mean to memorize the verses of scripture. People can memorize vast amounts of information but not understand it or follow its instruction.
And yet, all those things I just mentioned can be used to help you meditate. If you meditate on God’s Word it means that you so expose yourself to God’s Word, commands, and counsel that you are totally motivated, inundated, and saturated with the wisdom and understanding of God’s ways. You follow and obey God without having to stress out over decisions. You are so possessed by God’s ways that you “automatically” do what God’s Laws tell you to do.
For example, in a basketball team practice the coach has his players condition for individual strength, study plays for team strength, and practice repetitive drills for action and reaction strength. This is done so that the team can enter a real game and successfully defeat their opponent “automatically” executing the plays as a team, running up and down the court without losing their strength and quitting or making mental mistakes, passing and shooting with great control and expertise, and adjusting and adapting to the opponents defense and offense. This automatic execution is not automatic is it?
The long hard preparation given by each member of the team brings success. If one of the players memorized the play book but could not translate that drawing into actual play on the court he would destroy the play and cause mistakes and force turnovers and loss. It is not good enough to memorize the plays, it is necessary to work with the team repeating again and again the action in practice, so that in the real game you do not concentrate on the steps because they are so embedded into you that you execute without a lot of effort.
If this makes sense to you, then let’s go back to God’s Laws. Unless you so work at reading, memorizing, and meditating on God’s Word you will not succeed. So, meditating is the extra effort, similar to drills and constant practice, of digging into understanding the mi-nute details of God’s Word and commands.
The why, how, and where are important. The definitions of the words become extremely important. Why did God say this? What does that have to do with me? How do I obey that? How do I measure myself to see if I am properly doing God’s will? Concordances, commentaries, and dictionaries become important tools! Do we all have to become eggheads?
“Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” 2 Timothy 2:15
I guess the answer is yes and no. You do not have to become a teacher or preacher, but you need to be thorough and informed, educated and fully trained and experienced with a lot of practice.
What does this have to do with success? Who does God bless and give His help to, maybe those who He approves? Who gets to play in the basketball game, maybe the ones the coach approves? How does the player get approved?
How does success come to the Christian?
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper. Psalm 1:1-3 (NKJV)
Ecclesiastes 10:10 If the ax is dull, and one does not sharpen the edge, then he must use more strength; but wisdom brings success…
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