“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 have good success.”
Do we need a quarantine to practice the art of meditation? Personal, church, nation? Just think if we would quarantine ourselves and think not on ourselves or the enemy we fight but meditate on God’s Word and then pull with Adiddas, “just do it” (all that is written in God’s Word)we would be prosperous and have success, seemly this text says.
Do you believe it? I did notice it didn’t say study* but meditate* and in my mind that calls for quarantine time! Here’s my LOL, laugh out loud…from what people tell me and my own chatter…time, husband, wife, kids,work, sports, shop, worry, stress, anxiety, sex, video games, church, too much money, to little money, Doc appts, dentist appts, counsellor appts, oops, less I forget, MEETINGS! Etc.
Well, it is OT after all. And, it’s quoted out of context. It is talking to others surely not me? And, if I meditate I might find a nugget of truth for me but I’m just not going to do it because my ——might not like me. My—–will—-.
Does the Bible just overwhelm you at times? It does me! I’m here too often. I Kings 18:29….I read this… “but the people said nothing”… they didn’t choose God or Baal. I’m dwelling on the backside of the desert in my dreams! Or, just living there!
*Study (dissecting the text): What exactly is the text saying? What do the words mean?
*Meditation (savoring the text and entering into it): What is God saying to me? What is God inviting me to consider?
thedailylily.com 
Oh my goodness I have heard the same excuses, but lately I’ve heard I’m too busy with my grandchildren, I’m too tired, I’m going on a trip, I’m studying too much, my dog/cats can’t be alone that long, I need to clean house, I need to walk and feed the dog. BooHoo! The list goes on.
How pertinent this blog is. One of my BSF lesson questions this week was, “Can you think of a time you blamed someone else because you forgot God’s faithfulness and power to work in your situation?” The answer was immediate. The awfulness of it has arisen in my thoughts a lot over the years. Being older you can look back on your life and see the exact point that you didn’t faithfully go to God and you didn’t want to pray for an answer. You wanted to do it your way. As a very young famiy we had just moved to Louisiana and I had just gotten involved in the school system as a volunteer and I loved the people, but I asked people all along for them to pray for me to go back to Virginia. (Strange uh?) Along comes a possible job that would have taken us back to Virginia. I was comfortable where I was at. I was asked by a friend/pastor to pray as it was back to Virginia, remember I was asking everyone to pray to go back to Virginia but I didn’t pray. My friend/pastor asked me after a decision was made about the prayer for this job and I had to tell her the truth, that I didn’t pray. Confronted I told her I hadn’t prayed. I spent a lot of time crying over disobedience to God – to the desert I trodded. Looking back perhaps my marriage could have been saved if I had but prayed. I knew God’s faithfulness and power to work in situations. Had he not just moved me to Louisiana. NO I JUST WAS AFRAID HE’D SAY YES and I was happy where I was. God continued to do many beautiful things in my life, I continued to teach Sunday School, teach school, have Bible Studies. But the marriage failed. If only I had prayed and trusted in God’s faithfulness and power to work in the situation.
Rena, it seems the backside of the desert opens our hearts to know truth. Our eyes to see and ears to hear. Meditation is confirmed in your story as well as being told by Joshua…it is a power tool that renders great results when all the rules of God’s word is obeyed.
I feel for your yesterday. Rejoice in your day of hope by telling your heart story prompted by a study question from a Bible Study group that has stood the test of time. How amazing when you put study with meditation and obedience to God’s Word we hear progress to success and prosperity. Having eyes to see and ears to hear from Dr Jesus just gave you a rich reward! Congrats!
Praise God! I can’t do without HIM EVER!
Rena, in the last few days I have heard a lady lie, try and twist truth and sometimes I think they think they believe what they are saying? Or, maybe they get a high thinking they have deceived….My ? based on your experience do you think a “twist of truth teller” even knows they are doing it?
How we need to pray for ourselves when we sit in front of truth swingers!
Rena that BSF question sure has hit home. At a time when it is imperative to seek God in a serious situation having to do with health and great finances, I have NOT diligently sought, meditated or enquired of the Lord….not diligently. Oh! I have “thrown” prayers in His direction; and have mumbled a quick prayer-inquiry like, “what should I do, Lord?” Like you pleaded with spiritual friends to pray and intercede. I did pray for others’ requests and interceded for the sick. Yet, I did not take my spiritual responsibility to settle in and intercede on my own behalf about something that was crucial and might be game-changing in my life. That was my responsibility and I sort of allowed others to pray for me and otherwise, let the world dictate the course of events that are taking advantage of silly, irresponsibility in my life. I did not “hear & do” the wisdom my friend gave me I just did not get it!
Is it dobut? Is it unbelief…..Is it fear? Is it just mere stupidity? Do I not think that the Lord God Almighty cannot take care of this situation? Is like Jeepgary writes, hearing the voice of God, I do not hear or maybe WILL NOT HEAR?
But all the mea culpas in the world, though necessary to confess won’t set this situation on course until I take heed of the wisdom given in the opening of this Blog.
Study, Meditate [hear] and Do. Thanks Sara for this motivativational blog.
All I hear when I read this response is SELF.
I am terrified by your statement “I will not hear”.
Rena, I read your BSF question above and wanted to share something from the quarterly of the Baptist Sunday School that I attend. I missed last weeks Sunday school class but was reviewing the lesson I had missed entitled, “Our Words Matter”. There is always a section at the end of the lesson called “Live it Out’ where we are encouraged to apply what we have studied. It asked “Which best fits you where you are in your relationship with God at this time?” One of these was titled, “Resolve your dishonesty.” and instructed: “Perhaps you have not spoken the truth recently. Identify a person with whom you’ve been dishonest. Confess your deception to God and to the person, request forgiveness, and affirm your commitment from now on to speak truthfully in love.”
Great connecting, Debi! I love when we see the signifience of spirit-connects. Life changes!
“Do we need a quarantine to practice the art of meditation?”
I would say probably, yes.
The list you give, Sara, of excuses and distractions is a disease. Even 2 Tim 2:15 says to run from profane and idle babbling…from untruth because it ruins the hearers. Says it spreads like cancer.
Debi, you have knocked one out of the park on this. “Don’t listen to untruth because it will ruin you. It will have to be treated like a cancer.
I am thinking about ruining another by telling them lies. Can you imagine the penalty for ruin another’s life. I am really seeing why no getting into heaven by telling lies. I guess if you have become a liar you can’t repent for that since that’s just who you are. This is far out. Yeap, quarantine might just be in order.
“I guess if you have become a liar you can’t repent for that since that’s just who you are. This is far out.”
I think you must be right in that we treat it like it’s far out and couldn’t really happen if it becomes a habit like Rena referred to. Apparently Jesus thinks it happens because in John 8 he says those that those who want to lie are just like their father, the devil. And he says the devil speaks “out of his own character.” Character is who we really are.
Yeap, Debi, why would one want to repent from the love of their life?
i think the person knows he/she ia telling lies unless he or she has done it so much that it doesn’t bother them at all. It has become a habit. Pretty soon they won’t remember what is the lie and what is the truth they spoke about.
Rena, sounds like, 1 Tim 4:1-5
“Yeap, Debi, why would one want to repent from the love of their life?”
I don’t think one would want to repent and give up something one really loves. One would want to embrace it. And that would be the opposite of, “do according to all that is written in it”, one of which is to hate what is evil and cling to what is good.
After years of hearing “meditating” on scripture will make you prosper, I think the missing ingredient of the prescription was you must do more than “meditate” you must do. Many times we hear but we don’t hear. We think we have heard and lived just because we have read or heard a thing. But unless you live what you hear, you have not heard what you heard. You have just had an auditory experience of sound vibrating in your ears, nothing more. I wonder if we will be able to explain to Jesus, I heard you, but I didn’t do because I was too busy with life to be. I wonder if he will accept that we were busy buying, going, watching TV, doing good.
I wonder if we will hear, “well done, good and faithful servant” or if we will hear, “who are you, I don’t think we have met?” Maybe I shoud take the “we” out of my musing and say “I”? I wonder if I will hear, “well done, welcome home,” or if I will hear “who are you, I don’t think I know you?”
The answer probably lies in if I have just been a “meditator” and not a doer.
Well, my well of face to face time with God Almighty turned into a ventilating on my part. I didn’t hang around for the change me, transform me, because I needed to get back to more of the same old so I could corner God Almighty and vent again and tell Him I just praised Him with my personal best. Gary, if I answer truthfully, I may just be a doer of self will and not a meditator. I believe and trust just enough like a wet soggy rag mop that I can squeeze dirty water out and mop again and squeeze again, same bucket of dirty reusable water giving my face time a glow of satisfaction. Study, meditate and do! I have the perfect excuse, I have never really been that good with math so I see two and not three!
The three being study, meditate, do! As, I pause. Selah….I hear Father God from study, see Jesus Christ my door to heaven but Holy Spirit needs to scoot because I have my things I need to do. Sad, isn’t it…Come Holy Spirit, I need thee, come in Your Power, I pray.
Rena, I must really need the song, I need the ever hour….I just played that an hour or so ago by another artist but the same. And, Oh, I need Him hour by hour….
This is the group I can’t stop listening to….”Southern Raised” singing, “I Need The….”
A sermon I heard this am emphasized what you have been saying…must hear…and then do.
Gary the statement you asked yourself is most dreaded by me – I wonder if I will hear, “well done, welcome home,” or if I will hear “who are you, I don’t think I know you?” May I walk with Him and work with the needs He sets before me each day. A lady I truly admire in BSF said she lies across her bed every morning before she starts her day and ask the Lord something like this, “Lord this is your day, I am your servant, please strengthen me to do all that YOU ask this day.”
Sara how we need Jesus to change us so we may take on His character. Every hour we need Him reminds me of the song by Selah entitled I Need Thee Every Hour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-LkUTjYSUs
“A lady I truly admire in BSF said she lies across her bed every morning before she starts her day and ask the Lord something like this, “Lord this is your day, I am your servant, please strengthen me to do all that YOU ask this day.”
Rena, the teacher at the Baptist Sunday school I attended today encouraged the class to do something very similar as we each begin our day. Additionally, she said when you put Jesus first, others next and yourself last it spells JOY and that The Lord gives that blessing.
Thanks Debi I will keep the JOY as a priority in my life.
THANKS Sara for sharing the group Southern Raised, singing I Need the Every Hour.
So beautiful. I enjoyed every phrase of praise. Thanks for introducing them to me. I check out their other songs.
I agree Rena, beautiful singing expresses this hymn so deeply prayerfully.
Sara, a revival I am attending has the Theme, READ [ THE WORD]–PRAY [THE WORD]–LIVE [THE WORD]. That last one is a biggie.
Guess the first two without the third step renders of no effect. It reminds me of trying to order online. I find great item place in cart, give my personal info for shipping, give credit card and forget to click pace order! What have I got, nothing!
Yes…James said that faith without works [the doing] is dead…..And works done on our own and for our own glory….. Jesus likened to the Pharisses who stood on street corners and announced their good works with trumpets. That was it, for them, Jesus said. They have their reward in full.
Faith is a gift from God. Everyone is given a measure of faith, but we have to manage it and help it grow. I would say like steering a car in the direction you want it to go. Romans 10:17 reveals that faith grows by hearing the Word of God. The more you hear the Word of God, the more your faith will grow. The more your faith grows, the more you will see the promises of God when you choose from the faith based list. Therefore, I would say we have the faith to chose to live God’s word if we have heard it. I guess test givers have it right! Circle the right answer.
Thinking on MG’s comment about blowing your own horn….you got your reward. I believe it was not the blowing of the horn but the motive of the heart that gives the sound of the trumpet. For, we are told not to hide our light….
(Matthew 5:16)–“Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”
(1 Peter 2:12)–“Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation.”
The discerning of our own motives might be a brilliant heart invention. Another motive to consider is coward.. David Partridge writes, “Liars Are Cowards: Anyone who lacks the courage to look at the truth is a coward – ” and Revelation records, “But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars–they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”
I would say time to practice what we preach! The doing is life vital!
“Does the Bible just overwhelm you at times? It does me! I’m here too often. I Kings 18:29….I read this… “but the people said nothing”… they didn’t choose God or Baal. What exactly is the text saying?”
Footnotes for 1Kings: 18;29 says: “Although the prophets of Baal ‘raved all afternoon, ‘no one answered them. Their god was silent because it was not real. The gods we may be tempted to follow are not idols of wood or stone, but they are just as false and dangerous because they cause us to depend on something other then God. Power, status, appearance, or material possessions can become our gods if we devote our lives to them. But when we reach times of crisis and desperately call out to these gods, there will only be silence. They can offer no true answers, no guidance, and no wisdom.”
Now there is some truth! “They can offer no true answers, no guidance, and no wisdom”.
God’s Word says: (NLT) John 14: 5-6 “No, we don’t know Lord,’ Thomas said, ‘We have no idea where you are going, so how can we know the way?’ Jesus told him, ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”