Joshua 1:8
“This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will achieve success.”
The Lord had just told Joshua to be strong and courageous. This is the way to get that strength, to cling to God and His Word. I typed in the benefits of obeying God. Here they are: 1) peace, 2) guidance, 3) protection, 4) prosperity, 5) God’s favor, 6) wisdom, 7) answered prayers, 8) eternal life, 9) fruitfulness and 10) victory. These are all bible based results that God gives us. Today’s verse says that we gain prosperity and success.
Our job is to know God’s Word and to obey it. To know it we are to read it and hear it from church. We should be receiving instruction from at least one place, our church. We can get it all over the place. Now that we are in the internet age we can hear from many gifted teachers. Before the internet we had radio and television.
The new believer at least reads it. As they grow they learn other ways to get deeper into it. We learn to study it. For example, we might read a passage and have a question. What I do is go to online bible commentaries. I access them through biblehub. They answers my questions.
There are many other ways to get deeper into God’s Word. Some read it in a meditative fashion. They will read a verse and talk to God. It’s a prayerful walk through the Word. I journal. I read through a book of the bible and stop when I get a challenge or have a question. I will write about it, give it a title and post it on a web page.
Being in His Word makes us courageous and builds our house on the Rock (Jesus). We live life according to His ways. We use His Wisdom. This gets us out of many problems. It might prompt some as the world hates God. That’s ok, He gets us through them.
When we aren’t in His Word, we are in a weakened state in our faith. Hebrews 5:12,13 describes this person, “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the actual words of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food”. Some are here for a period of time, while some remain weakened their entire lives.
God works on our hearts to obey Him. We need to learn to obey quickly. As we put it off, we often forget. If we continue in this our hearts grow hard and we are unable to hear Him. That’s how to get stuck in this pattern of immaturity.
Lord, thank You, for Your Word. It gives us life, guidance, peace and much more. The best result is that we are in a relationship with You. Help us to quickly obey. You are so good to us. Thank You.
