God spoke to Joshua, “This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night.” We also need God’s Word to be always with us, never departing from us, and that comes through meditating on His Word. It is essential to memorize and voice His Word consistently because only His Word has the answers we need to meet each day.
Show Notes:
When Joshua had to lead the children of Israel after the death of Moses, he faced many challenges and dangers. He needed God to strengthen him. He needed to know that God was with him every day. So God spoke to him, “This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night.” This is not meditation as you might understand from Eastern religions. God told Joshua to keep speaking the Word to himself. The Hebrew word for meditate in this passage can even mean “to mutter, growl, or moan.”
Our personal lives might seem mundane compared to Joshua’s, who had to step into the shoes of Moses and set about to conquer nations. It is unlikely that we face those kinds of situations. But we do face situations at work or in relationships with others that are not easy to do. And we have the same need to meditate on the Word of God. Just as God told Joshua, “Be strong and courageous,” we have the same need to draw the courage from the Lord and throw off our fears. We too need to understand how to draw God’s presence, how to draw His strength, and how to know His leading for us.
Joshua is a great example of this. In the wilderness he would spend time in the Tent of Meeting after Moses left. Joshua did that to remain in the presence of God, and we need to follow that example. We too need to find the way to stay in the presence of God. In the wilderness the Lord imparted His instructions to Joshua. Then as the one to lead God’s people, Joshua kept those instructions alive in his mind and heart. He continually remembered them. He repeated them to himself. He voiced them aloud as though he were creating afresh what he had heard God speak. We too can make the Word of God a fresh and living part of our daily lives.
Key Verses:
- Joshua 1:8–9. “This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night.”
- Exodus 33:7–11. “When Moses returned to the camp, … Joshua, the son of Nun … would not depart from the tent.”
- Philippians 4:4–9. “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything … let your requests be made known to God.”
- Nehemiah 8:10. “Do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
- 1 Peter 5:7. “Casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.”
- Ephesians 6:16–17. “The shield of faith … will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.”
- Isaiah 26:3. “The steadfast of mind You will keep in perfect peace, because he trusts in You.”
Quotes:
- “Sometimes the Scriptures can maybe seem not that relatable to us. But the truth is that they really are relatable to our personal daily walk with Him.”
- “I believe that in the strength of our meditation on God’s Word, we will have the capacity to draw and appropriate all the provisions that the Lord has made for us.”
- “It’s not enough that we have examples. It’s not enough that these verses are giving us illustrations for our life and how we should live and what we should do. We have to exercise them. There has to be an action that we ourselves enter into.”
Takeaways:
- In the morning have a time of prayer where you are waiting on the Lord for His Word to come to you. Draw from the Lord the Scriptures you need.
- When you find things that speak to your heart, memorize those Scriptures because they will impart to you all that you need.
- Set a timer or make some type of a reminder for the time or times of prayer every day that work best for you. It will be effective because every time you do this, it will change your day.
If you memorize something, it is already in your mind, and you simply repeat it. You meditate on it, you mutter it, and you groan over it throughout the day.
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