The Fruit of Declaring and Meditating on the Scriptures
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 success. -Joshua 1:8
Moses, the great man of God and leader of the nation Israel, had gone to be with the Lord. Joshua was now commissioned by God to lead His people into the promise land. The territory God dedicated to Israel was described as “a good and spacious land … a land flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:8). This would be far better than the desert the Jews had wandered about for the past forty years.
Though this land was rich and bountiful, it was also occupied. Prior to their forty-year sentence to the desert, Israel sent out spies to gather intel about the land God had given them. Here are some of the dangers they described:
The people who live in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large; and moreover, we saw the descendants of Anak there … The land through which we have gone, in spying it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great size. There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight (Numbers 13:28, 32-33).
The fear generated by this report kept the men and women of Israel from obeying God and possessing the promise land under the leadership of Moses. It was Joshua’s turn to lead God’s people into their destiny. As the Lord commissioned Joshua to seize the land, a very interesting command was given to him. In Joshua 1:8, the Lord declared,
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 success.
At this stage, I would have expected the Lord to be more focused on delivering a strategic battle plan for the Israelites to destroy the inhabitants of the land. But instead, God gave strict instructions to obey His commandment by confessing and meditating on His word! After reviewing the verse again, it became evident to me that obedience to the Scriptures through the process of meditation and proclamation was God’s battle plan. Sure, He would give additional specific strategies to Israel, such as the seven-day march around Jericho, but these “practical strategies” would be futile if separated from the foundation of obedience to God’s word.
Why Declare the Word of God?
The first directive given in Joshua 1:8 was that the “book of the law shall not depart from your mouth.” Notice that God was informing Joshua not simply to read, but also to speak the Scriptures. Most people in the church recognize the value of reading and studying the Bible, but not much focus has been placed on declaring the word of God. But as you will soon see, verbally declaring God’s word is one of the most potent ways we wield the sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:17).
James lends insight into the value of our words when describing the power of the tongue in James 3:2-6.
For we all stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body as well. Now if we put the bits into the horses’ mouths so that they will obey us, we direct their entire body as well. Look at the ships also, though they are so great and are driven by strong winds, are still directed by a very small rudder wherever the inclination of the pilot desires. So also the tongue is a small part of the body, and yet it boasts of great things. See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell.
Proverbs 18:21 corroborates James’ testimony by declaring that “death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” Whether we know it or not, our words have creative potential. When used negatively, our words can defile our entire body and bring forth death. When used positively, our words release the power of God into situations that produce life.
Declaring the Scriptures is one of the most powerful weapons we have in our fight against evil. Jesus Himself proclaimed God’s word three different times when tempted by the devil in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11). The word of God is the holy “trump card” for the believer. The devil has no way of overcoming someone who declares the word of God in faith. This is why God was so adamant about commanding Joshua not to let the Scriptures depart from his mouth. [1]
The Transformative Power of Meditating on God’s Word
After commanding Joshua to declare the word, God instructs him to “meditate on it day and night.” For many, the thought of meditation consists of sitting cross-legged in a field and chanting “ooommm” repeatedly. This is not biblical meditation. The enemy regularly taints God’s strategies by twisting fruitful practices into tools for destruction. Meditation is at the top of that list.
Biblical meditation involves a deep consumption of God’s word where we take the text on a page and, through the power of the Spirit, make it a reality in our hearts. The Hebrew word for meditate is haga which has a root meaning to “‘think through’ something, with personal interest in actual life-application – especially as when studying Scripture.” [2]
Meditation is vital to remaining faithful to the word of God because it causes us to “digest” the truth of a passage in a way we can’t by simply reading over it. Most of us have read millions of words in our lifetime, but a vast majority of these words, phrases, and paragraphs have little impact on our soul. We are rarely transformed by what we read because we make such little effort to slow down and mull over it. This internalization (meditation) process is costly because it requires time and focused attention, but it is well worth the fruit it produces.
We are told not simply to meditate on the word every once in a while, but to commit ourselves to dwell on the Scriptures continually. In Joshua 1:8, God commands Joshua to meditate on His word “day and night.” I don’t believe this is literally speaking of a particular period every morning or every evening (although I think that practice would be incredibly beneficial), but rather is a way of reminding Joshua to continually keep God’s word on his mind and in his heart.
In his book, Effortless Change: The Word is the Seed that Can Change Your Life, Andrew Wommack ties together the similarities of worry and meditation, sharing how it is possible to meditate on the Scripture throughout the entirety of your day.
“Meditation is simply focusing your attention on something to the point that it never leaves your consciousness. Worry is meditation. It’s just meditation on something negative or evil … The part of you that worries is the exact same part of you that meditates. Meditation is just focused on positive things. If you have children at home or you’re working a job, it’s wrong for you to sit down and study the Word sixteen hours a day. This is not being faithful to your family, boss, or employer – to the responsibilities you have been assigned. But you can take a passage of Scripture, read it, and then meditate on it the rest of the day and night while attending to your responsibilities. You can be thinking on the Word of God and considering, How does this apply to me? while you’re going about your daily activities.” [3]
The Fruit of Declaration & Meditation
After focusing on the process of declaring and meditating on the Bible, the fruit borne from these undertakings is now revealed. The next phrase in Joshua 1:8 shares how the primary purpose (at least in the context of this verse) for declaring and meditating on the Scripture is “so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it.” We continually speak and meditate on God’s word so that we are better equipped to obey it.
Our obedience to God and His word is one of the most important assignments given to us as believers. The reason for this is not mainly about appeasing God’s need to be obeyed (as if He were some power-hungry heavenly dictator) but about demonstrating our love for Jesus. Love and obedience are intimately interwoven in God’s kingdom. Here are just a few examples of this principle from the New Testament:
If you love Me, you will keep My commandments (John 14:15).
And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, that you should walk in it (2 John 1:6).
Whoever has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me. The one who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and reveal Myself to him (John 14:21).
Loving God is the first and primary commandment given to every believer. When questioned by a lawyer about which commandment in the law was of chief importance, Jesus responded, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment” (Matthew 22:37-38). As we have seen from the verses above, loving God and obeying God cannot be separated.
Here we come to the crux of Joshua 1:8. Really it is two simple words, “so that,” which tie together what we have looked at so far.
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. (Joshua 1:8, emphasis mine).
We declare and meditate on God’s word so that we can obey the Scriptures. We strive to follow the Scriptures to display our love for Jesus. Loving Jesus is our primary aim in life and is the greatest commandment God calls us to follow. Are you starting to see why verbally confessing and meditating on the word is so important? These two disciplines help us fulfill our ultimate destiny of loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
The Guaranteed Result of Our Obedience to God’s Word
We have concluded that confessing and meditating on God’s word empowers us to obey the commands of Jesus. Though obeying Jesus is an end in itself, God goes one step further in rewarding those who diligently follow Him. Isn’t it like Him “to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20)?
At the end of verse 8, God promises prosperity and success to all who uphold the requirements given earlier in the verse. Let’s be careful to avoid the common belief that God’s view of prosperity and success is the same as the world’s. Many mistake this passage to believe that all their problems will disappear if they follow God. Members of this camp equate prosperity with popularity, wealth, and an all-around easy life. This is simply not true.
God has different paths for people regarding external success and prosperity. Some may walk in godly success like Solomon, who “became greater than all the kings of the earth in riches and wisdom” (2 Chronicles 9:22). Others may walk in godly success like the apostle Paul who, when compared to other servants of Christ, was “in far more labors, in far more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death” (2 Corinthians 11:23).
Both men were successful (at least at this stage of their life) though they had very different external circumstances. The prosperity and success that God speaks of is primarily an internal experience. Regardless of what we have or don’t have in this life, we will all one day be judged on an equal playing field before God. Knowing this to be true, may we dedicate ourselves to the daily habit of confessing and meditating on the word of God in order that we may be careful to obey our Heavenly Master and receive the reward of a prosperous and successful life!
[1] Another consideration regarding the interpretation of this verse is to keep in mind that the Israelites and most people of that era were an oral society. Many did not know how to read and there were not publishing houses cranking out millions of Torahs each year. An aspect of this verse could also be a command for Joshua to read the Scripture out loud to the Jewish people in order to continue to remind them of the commands and promises of God.
[2] The Discovery Bible Software, HELPS Lexicon Entry H1897, https://discoverybible.com/.
[3] Andrew, Wommack, Effortless Change: The Word is the Seed that Can Change Your Life (Tulsa: Harrison House, 2010) 14-15.