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The Source of Obedience
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
Today’s message is for people who find it hard to obey the word of God. It could be that you just got saved recently and you find it hard to be obedient to God. Or you have been saved for a while but have never been able to live a clean life.
To be able to obey the Word of God, you need to fill yourself with the Word. Read it until you are full of the Word. Read it everyday for a number of hours. Read it until you cannot help but speak the Word.
Secondly, meditate on the Word. Give yourself time to just sit and meditate on certain scriptures in the Word. What this will do is to renew your mind. Remember, sin is first conceived in the mind. The devil plants a sin idea in your mind. If you meditate on that sin, you are likely to commit it. But if you just stop that idea and instead take a piece of scripture to think of, you will have overcome. God gave this instruction to Joshua at the beginning of his term of leading the Israelites. The task was huge but he knew the only way to do that is to have a leader whose mind is renewed by the Word of God.
Note that God is saying the book of the law must not depart from your mouth. You know when the Book of the Law has departed from your mouth; you will not even have scriptures to meditate on. Even your words will change. By meditating on the Word you will be able to do everything written in the Bible, yes all. T
he last part of this verse states the results of obedience that comes through studying and meditating on the Word: Then you will be prosperous and successful. This is the source of the purest form of success. This is the kind of prosperity that God has planned for his children.
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