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.
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.
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?
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?
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…