What does it means to “Meditate” on the Word of God?

What we need is a whole new generation of grace preachers who can be very strong and courageous in preaching the unadulterated gospel of Jesus, His person and His perfect the unadulterated gospel of Jesus, His person and His perfect work on the cross. We need leaders who are established in the new covenant of grace (unmerited favor), and who will not be satisfied with putting new wine into old wineskins by compromising with a mixture of law and grace! Be bold and preach and gospel as it is without adding to it by magnifying man's works, or subtracting from it trying to remove God's unmerited favor that produce good success. It's time for us to bring the people into their promised inheritance!

Meditating On the Word of God

What does it means to “Meditate” on the Word of God?

Coming back to Joshua's appointment as Moses' successor, look at the instructions that God gave Joshua: “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mout, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe 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.” God told Joshua that to have good success, he had to meditate on the law day and night. Joshua lived under the old covenant, so how should we, who live under the new covenant, benefit from this scripture?

We need to read this portion of scripture in view of Jesus' finished work. That is why it was essential for me to spend the last couple of chapters establishing you firmly on the rock-solid foundation of the new covenant of grace. Now that you know that we are no longer under the law, what is the new covenant way to be blessed and to experience good success? Joshua only had the law to meditate upon because the New Testament had not been written yet. For us, the secret to good success is found in meditating on God's Word in the light of the new covenant of grace.

Before we can go into what it means to meditate on God's Word, what exactly does it mean to “meditate”?

When the Bible talks about meditation, it's not referring to a mental exercise. The Hebrew word for meditation in the Old Testament is the word hagah, which means to utter or mutter. So to hagah is to speak under your breath. Notcie that the Lord told Joshua, “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth...” He did not say that it “shall not depart from your mind.” The key to meditating on God's Word is not mental contemplation. It is in speaking God's promises with your mouth!

“Pastor Prince, does this mean that I should keep repeating God's Word? For instance, should I keep saying 'by His stripes I am healed' when I need healing?”

Meditating on God's Word does not mean making vain repetitions of scriptures. Meditating on the Word is muchmore and is something that first occurs deep in your heart. The psalmist David captured the essence of meditation most aptly when he said, “My heart was hot within me, while I was musing, the fire burned. Then I spoke with my tongue...” As you are meditating on God's Word, ask the Holy Spirit to give you a fresh revelation of Jesus. Let that scripture burn with revelation in your heart. And as you speak out of that burning revelation, God anoints the words that you speak. When you declare, “By His stripes I am healed,” and that declaration is uttered with a sense of revelation and faith in Jesus, there will be power in your declaration.

Meditate On Jesus, The Word Made Flesh, And Experience Good Success

Under the new covenant, we get to meditate on the person of Jesus when we meditate on the Word. Jesus is the Word made flesh, and as you meditate on His love for you, on His finished work, on His forgiveness and on His grace, God guarantees that you will have good success.

You can just take one verse and meditate on Jesus' love for you. For example, you can begin to mutter Psalm 23:1 under your breath: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” As you meditate on this simple verse, you begin to realize that the Lord is (present tense) your shepherd. A shepherd provides for his sheeps, feeds them and protects them. Because Jesus is your shepherd, you shall not be in want for anything. You shall not lack wisdom, direction, provision – anything. You begin to see that Jesus is present with you, providing for you, watching out for you, and making sure that you and your family will have more than enough. Now, right at that moment, in that short period of meditating on Jesus, faith is imparted and your heart is encouraged with the reality that Jesus is with you, even when you are facing some challenges.

Whether you are a homemaker, salesperson or business owner, your soul will be nourished and strengthened when you meditate on Jesus. In fact, every time you meditate on God's Word, Jesus will propel you into success without you even realizing it! Without you having to scheme, devise or make all sorts of plans, Jesus will direct your steps, lead you to the place that you are supposed to be and cause doors of opportunity to supernaturally open wide for you. When you meditate on Jesus, your ways always become prosperous. Now, don't be afraid to use the word “prosperous.” It's God's promise in the Bible. When you meditate (mutter) on Jesus day and night, the Bible says that “you will make your prosperous, and then you will have good success”!

Some people think that they are prosperous once they have made their first million. But when you examine their lives, you find that somewhere along the way in their struggle to make more and more money, they have lost the very things that are really important. They may have built up an impressive investment portfolio, but their children want nothing to do with them anymore and they have hurt the people who once loved them. That is not true prosperity or good success.

When God blesses you with prosperity, financial blessings are included, but only as a small part of the whole. Good success from Jesus will never take you away from your church. It will never take you away from your loved ones. Most of all, it will never take you away from yourself. You will not wake up one day in the midst of your pursuit of success and find that you no longer know the person looking back at you in the mirror.

My friend, learn to meditate on the person of Jesus. He is your good success. When you have Him, you have everything. The Bible tells us that “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” The word for “God” here in the original Greek text is Christos, referring to Christ. In other words, faith comes by hearing and hearing the Word of Christ.

Jesus is your good success. When you have Him, you have everything.

Faith does not come just by hearing the Word of God. Faith comes by hearing the Word of Jesus and His finished work. In the same way, meditating on God's Word is about meditating, muttering and hearing about Jesus. This does not mean that you read only the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. No, every page of the entire Bible from cover to cover points to the person of Jesus!

If you desire to experience good success in your life, then I encourage you to meditate on messages preached by ministries that are all about exalting the person of Jesus, His beauty, His unmerited favor and His perfect work for you on the cross. Listen to new covenant ministries that do not mix law and grace, but rightly divide the Word of God and preach the unadulterated gospel of Jesus. The more you hear of Jesus and the cross, the more faith will be imparted to you and you will experience good success in your life!

Chapter 15

The Blessed Man Versus The Cursed Man

When learning anything, there are always foundations that need to be established before you can continue further. In Mathematics, you must learn addition before you can move on to learning multiplication. In learning the English language, you must first be established in recognizing letters in the alphabet before you can move on to basics of spelling, sentence structure and punctuation.

Similarly, if you want to delve deeper into God's Word, you must first be established in the truth that you are now under the new covenant of grace. Every revelation in God's Word is built upon the revelation of Jesus Christ and His finished work. My desire is that as you continue to walk through the pages of this book with me, you will come to a place of maturity in your understanding of the new covenant of grace.

The Book of Hebrews tells us that “everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe.” This means that if you are established in your righteousness (the word of righteousness) through Christ, you are no longer a spiritual baby. Once you have the revelation that your righteousness is not dependent on your own right doing, but on your right believing in Jesus, you have matured and become skillful in the word righteousness.

You see, it does not take the Holy Spirit to understand the law. If you were to walk down any street and interview passer-bys to find out how a person can get to heaven, most of them will probably tell you that you can get to heaven if you behaved well and did good deeds. This emphasis on one's own behavior, efforts and merits is actually works based on the system of the law.

In fact, the belief systems of man are based on the system of the law. Simply put, if you do good, you get good. If you do bad, you get beat! The world has no problems understanding concepts like retribution and judgment under the system of the law. You may have seen the sitcom My Name is Earl. Well, the people of world are generally like Earl. When Earl does something good, he expects something good to happen to him. Conversely, when he does something bad, he expects some form of punishment.

Jesus did everything on our behalf and He qualified us for heaven and for every blessing of good success!

But you know what? You and I have something that the world cannot understand, and it is called grace (unmerited favor)! We did not do anything – Jesus did everything on our behalf and He qualified us for heaven and for every blessing of good success! Even when we fail, we can have a confident expectation of good instead of a fearful expectation of punishment. This is not because we have stored up enough merits or good deeds. It is purely because the blood of Jesus has washed us whiter than snow. What we have as new covenant believers is so good that we need the Holy Spirit to be able to understand the exceeding richness of Jesus' unmerited favor toward us.

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Excerpt from Book - Unmerited Favor by Joseph Prince