I’ve discovered that I need to drink more water. If I don’t,
I am prone to get a lot of headaches, especially during the night. But it is
just not a question of headaches. We tend to need more water for many reasons.
I, therefore, try to always have a glass of water at my side.
However, there is another commodity that we continually need
by our side. Without it we suffer and fail to develop properly. The Bible demands
that it must be the staple of our diet:
·
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel
of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of
scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he
meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that
yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he
does, he prospers. (Psalm 1:1–3 (ESV)
The servant of God who is nourished by the Word prospers.
Jesus also embraced this truth. In His parable of the Seeds and the Sower,
He concluded:
·
“As for what was sown on good soil, this is the
one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in
one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.” (Matthew
13:23)
The fearful Joshua was about to take the reigns from Moses
to lead Israel in the conquest of the Promised Land. At this time, God revealed
to him what we be the necessary ingredient of his success:
·
Only be strong and very courageous, being
careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do
not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good
success wherever you go. 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. (Joshua 1:7–8)
Joshua had been fearing this transition, so God informed him
that his courage and success would be derived from meditating on the Word “day
and night.” It had to be foremost in his thinking and doing. Therefore, it was
necessary to understand it to apply it. This could only come from a steady diet
of meditation upon this Word.
We are continually assaulted by doubts, confusion, fears, and
temptations, each vying for our spirit (Galatians 5:17). How to resist them?
Only with the armor of God:
·
In all circumstances take up the shield of
faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and
take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of
God. (Ephesians 6:16–17)
We cannot say, “I have the Spirit to guide me. Therefore, I
do not need the Word.” Instead, to trust in the strength and guidance of the
Spirit requires us to use the sword of the Spirit – the Word of God.”
When we are assaulted by fears, these should turn us to the
only solution for our fears, to God through his Word and its:
·
When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God,
whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do
to me? (Psalm 56:3–4)
To trust in God is to put our trust in the promises of His
Word. The Word is also the test of truth (2 Corinthians 10:4-5). It gives us
the correct lens to interpret life, our experiences, and the faith to resist
the accusations of our enemy. Too often, we think that bad things are happening
to us because God doesn’t love us enough. Instead, the Scriptures inform us
that our suffering proves the opposite:
·
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves and
chastises every son whom he receives…For the moment all discipline seems
painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of
righteousness to those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:6,11)
There are so many truths we must learn from the Scriptures
so that we can confidently endure. We tend to grieve over our weaknesses,
failures, and inadequacies if we fail to understand that our lives are no longer
our own:
·
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no
longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the
flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians
2:20)
Since Christ is now at the helm of our lives, we no longer
need to obsess about our weaknesses. Instead, our weaknesses are our strengths:
·
But he [God] said to me, “My grace is sufficient
for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all
the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships,
persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2
Corinthians 12:9–10)
These many truths set us free and enable us to accept
ourselves and others. Why am I writing these things? Because I am convinced
that our diets do not contain enough of the food of the Word. We need to have
this Word guarding our thinking, speaking, actions, and even the Words we write
on social media:
·
so that we may no longer be children, tossed to
and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human
cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in
love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, (Ephesians
4:14–15)
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