Success, Wisdom and Prosperity Through Scripture Meditation

The following verse of Scripture is one of the most important verses in the Bible:

“This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall read [and meditate on] it day and night, so that you may be careful to do [everything] in accordance with all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will be successful.”  (Joshua 1:8)

The Holy Spirit will reveal great spiritual truth to you if you faithfully obey your Father’s instructions to meditate day and night on his Word.

The final sentence of Joshua 1:8 emphasizes what God has promised to you. Your Father promises that you will prosper, that you will be wise and that you will be successful. This promise does not include an asterisk saying that it is null and void if the Dow Jones average is below a certain level or if other difficult problems are occurring in the world. Your Father promises that you will be prosperous, wise and successful regardless of worldly conditions.

Stop for a moment and think about the significance of this verse of Scripture. God always tells the truth. You can be assured that you will be prosperous, wise and successful if you will do exactly what your Father has instructed you to do. When this verse of Scripture says that “you shall deal wisely,” you can be assured that these words refer to receiving wisdom from God. God regards the world’s wisdom as foolishness.  

“But where can wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding? Man does not know its value, nor is it found in the land of the living.” (Job 28:12 – 13) 

“For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their own craftiness”; and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.”  (1 Corinthians 3:19–20) 

Your Father will give you the wisdom that you must have according to your faith in Him during the difficult times that will come upon the world. 

“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”  (James 1:5–8)

Strong’s exhaustive concordance contains every word in the King James version of the Bible. If you will look in this Concordance, you will see that the word “success” is used only one time in the entire King James version of the Bible.

You must understand the importance of learning exactly what your Father instructs you to do to be successful from His perspective. The Hebrew word “Sakal” that is translated as “success” in this verse of Scripture means “an expert, someone with great wisdom and understanding who is prosperous, skillful and able to teach others.”  These words will describe you if you consistently obey the specific instructions your Father has given to you in this verse of Scripture.

Your Father does not play favorites. (In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality. Acts 10:34) What he promised to do for Joshua, He will do for you if you faithfully obey the instructions that He gave to Joshua in this verse of Scripture.

Now that you have seen the three blessings that God promises to you, you must understand exactly what your Father has instructed you to do to receive these blessings.

Your Father tells you that his Word “shall not depart out of your mouth.”  Your Father wants your mouth to continually speak His Word. Whenever you are not speaking specific Scripture, all of the words that you speak should line up with the instructions and promises in God’s Word.

The second instruction that God has given to you is to meditate on his Word “day and night.” 

In addition to speaking God’s Word continually and meditating day and night on the Holy Scriptures, you are also instructed to “observe and do according to all that is written” in the Word of God. 

Unfortunately, some Christians know very little about what God has instructed them to do. They have not paid the price of consistently studying the Holy Scriptures. How can you obey your Father’s instructions if you do not know exactly what He has instructed you to do?

Your Father wants you to renew your mind in his Word and to meditate on his Word continually to learn all that He instructs you to do. He then wants you to do your very best to obey all of the instructions He has given you.

Once again you can see the correlation between being prosperous and delighting in the Word of God. You must have a deep hunger and thirst for God’s Word. You must meditate day and night on the holy Scriptures.

PSALM 1:2-3
Now that we have given you three additional passages of Scripture to emphasize the importance of delighting in God’s Word, we are ready to go back to Psalm 1:2–3 to study it more carefully. Psalm 1:2 instructs you to “habitually” meditate on the Word of God. When you do something habitually, you do it consistently. Your Father has instructed you to meditate day and night on His supernatural living Word.

If you delight in God’s Word and you habitually meditate day and night on the Holy Scriptures, you will be like a tree planted next to a stream. Trees that are planted next to a stream will continue to bring forth fruit in season even if there is a drought.

Example of the row of trees that sits next to the stream as being lush and green and filled with fruit despite the drought. Why is this one row of trees spared from the drought? A tree that is planted next to a stream of water does not have to depend on rain from the sky. The taproot of this tree can draw up water from the stream during a drought to continue to produce abundant fruit. 

The same principle will apply to you during difficult times if you will faithfully obey your Father’s instructions to meditate day and night on His Word. You will prosper in every area of your life. Your life will be fruitful, no matter what is happening in the world. You will have a close relationship with God because of your consistent Scripture meditation.

When people throughout the world are anguishing because of the intolerable conditions the world will face, you will come safely through this drought if you have faithfully obeyed God’s instructions to meditate day and night on his Word. Are you determined to faithfully follow the specific instructions that your Father has given to you?

How to Meditate on the Word of God
(Story of Jack Hartman’s friend telling him that the only way to avoid filing bankruptcy was to saturate himself in the Word of God.)  The best way to explain how to meditate on Scripture is to compare Scripture meditation with worrying. Chronic worriers do exactly what you should do when you meditate on the Bible. Chronic worriers think about a problem constantly. Whatever they are worrying about never leaves their consciousness. They look at the perceived problem from every angle.

They personalize the problem. They visualize what will happen whenever what they are worrying about comes into manifestation. They are consumed by their worry. Worry is a way of life for chronic worriers who always are worried about something.

Chronic worriers utilize all of the principles of Scripture meditation except they are meditating on the problems they face instead of meditating on God’s Word. Chronic worriers believe that the things they are worried about will come into manifestation in their lives.  “Your mind will meditate on the terror” (Isaiah 33:18)

Instead of meditating on the problems you face and visualizing them becoming worse, you should consistently meditate on God’s supernatural living Word. Instead of meditating on what you do not want to happen, meditate day and night on what your Father promises to do. Fill your consciousness with the Word of God.

Absolutely refuse to meditate on whatever problem you face. Do not turn this problem over and over in your mind. You must not visualize this problem becoming worse. Once you have identified the problem, you must stop dwelling on it.

Instead of focusing on the problem, you should meditate constantly on God’s answers to this problem. Focus continually on God and on promises from his Word. Know that your Father is completely reliable and that he always does whatever He says He will do. (1 Corinthians 1:9 and Joshua 23:14) if you know and heed his conditions and if you persevere in your faith in Him for as long as He requires you to persevere.

When you face a difficult problem, you should have bulldog tenacity. Do not let up. Meditate on appropriate Scripture references hour after hour, day after day, week after week, month after month and, if necessary, year after year.

You should be consumed with God’s supernatural living Word. Refuse to waiver in the slightest in your certainty that your Father will do exactly what He says He will do. Be certain to do everything you can do to remedy any errors you have made.

Other people can teach God’s Word to you, but no one else can meditate on the Word of God for you. When you meditate on a promise from God, you must not take this promise lightly.

If you really believe that the words from the Scripture you are meditating on will come into manifestation, you will be encouraged. Get these promises up off the printed pages of the Bible, this book or wherever else you find Scripture to meditate on. Fill your mind and your heart with magnificent promises and instructions from God.

“But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him.” (1 John 2:5)

This verse of Scripture says that God’s love will be perfected in you if you keep his word. Obedience to God’s 

instructions is absolutely necessary for God’s love to be perfected in your life. You cannot obey God’s instructions if you do not know what they are. Are you obeying your Father’s specific instructions to renew your mind in his Word each day? (See 2 Corinthians 4:16 & Ephesians 4:23 below) and to meditate day and night on the Holy Scriptures (Joshua 1:8 & Psalm 1:2–3) If you do not know and obey your Father’s instructions, you give satanic spirits the opportunity to operate in and dominate your life.

Therefore, we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.   (2 Corinthians 4:16)

Be renewed in the spirit of your mind. (Ephesians 4:23)

Keep the Word 1st Place
God created you in such a way that your mind cannot think of two things at the same time. As the bad news in the world increases, you should offset this proliferation of bad news by increasing the amount of good news from God’s Word that you constantly poor into your eyes, your ears, your mind, your heart and your mouth through consistent Scripture meditation.

Refuse to dwell on the bad news of the world and that the news media will pour out. The worse the news is in the world, the more you need to meditate on the good news of God’s Word.

When you meditate on God’s Word you are programming your innermost consciousness much as a computer is programmed. As you meditate again and again on a specific promise from God, this passage of Scripture becomes a part of your innermost being. It takes up residence in your heart. You have programmed yourself with the promises of God instead of programming yourself with the bad news of the world.

The Psalmist understood the importance of delighting in the Word of God. He refused to allow the problems he faced to pull him down. He said, “trouble and anguish have found and taken hold on me, yet your commandments are my delight.”  (Psalm 119:143)

This verse of Scripture tells you exactly what you should do when you find yourself in “trouble and anguish.” You must “delight” in the Word of God. You must not allow the problems you face to cause you to compromise your loyalty and commitment to God by looking elsewhere for a solution. You should delight in obeying God regardless of the circumstances you face.

Boldly speak God’s promises again and again. Persevere in faith. Establish these magnificent scriptural facts pertaining to the victory of Jesus Christ deep in your heart. Continual meditation will strengthen your faith in God. Your faith in Jesus Christ and the tremendous victory He won for you should be much greater than any problem you will ever face.

Gregory Dickow