Meditate and Chew
Pastor, are you an starving chef? Are you serving healthy meals to your congregation every Sunday, while you yourself are starving to death spiritually? Have you allowed the business side of the church to steal your prayer life and rob you of time spent in the Scriptures building yourself up? One of the great dangers of ministry is giving out but not taking in. Financially, when you give out more than you take in you end up bankrupt. And the same thing can happen to you spiritually. When Joshua replaced Moses as the leader of Israel, God said the same thing to him three times: ‘Be strong and of good courage.’ (Joshua 1: 6, 7 and 9) Then He explained to Joshua where his strength and courage would come from: ‘This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on 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.’ (Joshua 1:8 NKJV) Note the words, ‘you will make your way prosperous.’ You have a role to play in both your strength and your success. What is it? To ‘meditate on [God’s Word] day and night.’ To meditate is to ruminate. Cows ruminate. This means they chew grass, swallow it, bring it back up and chew it some more, and each time they do they get something more out of it. So chew on God’s Word. Think about it. Process it. If you want to be spiritually healthy, meditate and ruminate on the Scriptures!