UNLOCKING THE RICHES

A few days ago I was working on a teaching that I was to do for the leaders of a ministry here in North Texas. The first chapter of Joshua is the basis of a teaching I call “Guidelines for Success”. The first nine verses of Joshua 1 are God’s instructions to Joshua when he assumed leadership after the death of Moses. This is truly a great passage and is filled with very meaningful instructions not just for leaders but for every believer. God was not just instructing Joshua how to lead the nation but was giving him very powerful promises for every part of his life, both public and private.

As I was working on the teaching , I came to verse eight “Do not let this Book of Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.” (Joshua 1:8)

I have always had trouble with the first part of this verse…the instruction to not let the Word depart from your mouth and the tie to meditation. For me it has been like hitting an unexpected speed bump and I had not found a fully satisfactory answer. The meditation part I grasped but why the instruction to keep the Word in our mouth? Meditation is not an act of the mouth it’s an action of the mind so how do the two then work together?

My study had always focused on the mouth being the primary entrance portal to the body for food, air and water (some of us have very big portals) and that would lead one to believe that the instruction was to regularly take in the Word and then meditate on it. That is solid and good instruction but the Holy Spirit showed me something else that wonderfully builds and expands on this.

We live in the age of fast food, fast cars, fast internet, fast banking, fast women (they’ve been around for a long time). Everything is being done at increasing levels of speed. We are now in the age of fast, prepackaged church services. The pace of life is fast and rarely do we slow down to enjoy much of anything including church.

If you are going to enjoy food you have to savor the mouthful that you have taken in. It’s when you chew the food that the flavor is unlocked and you can really taste and enjoy what you are eating. The word savor means “to have the experience of”. The whole concept behind fast food is that we are in a hurry so let’s eat quickly so that we can continue our rushed life style. The driving principle of fast food is not savoring but quick consumption….”you need this but it’s not necessary to really enjoy it!”

What hit me as I studied this was that this is an injunction to not rush our time with the Word. As in eating it is the chewing, the repetitious chewing of a mouthful that causes the flavor to be released. It’s as we “chew and savor” the Word that we begin to understand more fully what the Author intended. To savor the Word we need to take the time to let the riches begin to unlock and that cannot be done in haste. We need to “stop and smell the roses”.

Meditation for a follower of Jesus is not the mindless repetition of a sentence or a verse. Christian meditation is, as far as I’m concerned, the prayerful repetition of a verse or passage. It’s prayerful because you are asking God to unlock the riches contained in this passage.

(A warning here! If you think you have found all the flavor in a scripture that’s the first sign that you haven’t. We are to savor the Word with the understanding that we will never completely unlock all the flavor in a particular passage.)

There are a lot of practical ways to learn to savor the Word of God. One is to memorize passages…long or short and then call them back to mind. Another is to read and reread passages that have been ministering to you, that you have been drawn to. Another is to put special passages on a card that you can carry in your pocket or post on the edge of your computer screen…in either case you can refer to them regularly, chew on them a bit and continue to let the riches unlock.

“He sent His word and healed them,
And delivered them from their destructions.” (Psalm 107:20)

Healing and deliverance is available to all of us through God’s word. Take the time and let the flavor/riches unlock in your heart and spirit.

Here is one of the verses that I am meditating on right now.

“If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in safe country, how will you manage in the thickets by the Jordan?” (Jeremiah 12:5)