Advice.
Have you ever noticed how easy it is to give & how hard to take or follow? We are quick to offer it & yet slower to heed it when given to us. What an irony advice can be.
This morning I read a verse that I quickly realized offered 3 excellent pieces of advice….
 “Do not let this Book of the 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 NIV).
There we have it – three of the best pieces of advice we may be offered this morning:
- Study. Notice that we are not to let The Word depart from our mouth. That means, “to remove or depart through the idea of receding by contact” (Strong’s 4185). In other words, we are to be reading & studying Scripture each day. We do not want to let it “recede” from our lives. We do not want to let days pass where we read it less & less than the day before.
- Meditate. This has been defined by Strong’s(1897) as “to speak, to devise, to plot, to recite”. It is not a meditation by which there is an emptying of our minds but rather a focus by which we are filling our minds with God, with His workings. We are recognizing God for Who He is & What He is able to do.
- Do. This is allowing Scripture to have affect in our lives so that it yields an obedient lifestyle in us.
Joshua was a warrior, a military man if you would. Interesting that Moses is not giving Joshua battle advice or strategies. Moses is telling Joshua that the key to his success in leading the Israelites will be his obedience to God. Our lives will be framed by our obedience. “Study & learning are to form so much a part of one’s life that the words are fully obeyed.” (New American Commentary). It is in that framework that then the success comes….
“Then you will be prosperous & successful.”
How often we want the success without making any effort. To be “prosperous & successful” means that God’s will can be accomplished in & through my life. It is there that I will find the joy of living.
May I be sure to do my part though & “study”, “meditate” & “do”.
                       
Â
