Remain stable in the truth.
Well, what’s the truth? So glad you asked. God’s Word and promises are the one and the only, real truth. It can be hard at times to decipher what’s the “truth”. Frankly, the Word of God is truer than the symptoms we feel, the pain we experience, the situation we are in the midst of, or the reports that we hear.
Marinate (or meditate) on that for a bit.
Let me say it another way: the Word of God is truer than any of our physical, situational, or emotional experiences.
How so? Because emotions, situations, and circumstances are subjective. These things are ever changing (they can even change based on individual interpretation as some look at a situation and come to one conclusion, while others look at the same and draw a completely different perspective). These things can also be shifted at any moment and used by God for our good. Those things can be changed, altered. But a truth cannot be changed because it’s an objective fact. God’s Word is never changing because it is a true, objective fact.
Yes, God gave us our emotions, and the ability to feel gladness, sadness, anger, and so forth. But feelings aren’t facts. Therefore, they are not a firm foundation upon which to build any conclusions or wise decision-making. Our emotions and situations are continually shifting and effected by our decisions, by others, and also by God.
When He promises to take care of us (Is. 46:4), He promises to provide for us (Phil. 4:19), He promises to heal us (Ex. 23:25), He promises He will never leave us (Is. 41:10-13), He promises He hears and sees us (Ps. 116:1-2), those are the true and beautiful things we should allow our minds to continually focus on.
Reading God’s Word and meditation are essential to one another because you need to know what the bible says in order to meditate on it. You can’t meditate on something you do not know. Whether you meditate on a scripture word-for word, or thought-for-thought, you have to have God’s Word as your meditation foundation. The two are also important to one another because through meditation, God’s Word grows deeply rooted in our hearts. The more you meditate on a scripture or a biblical truth, the more you begin to believe it and the more equipped you will be to spiritually fight your battles.
When our minds start to wander off into the what-ifs and the worst-case-scenarios, that’s all deception from the enemy.
So, here’s the challenge, take your heaviest concern right now. As have I, you too have probably thought more than what you’d like about the worst possible outcome of that concern. But in practicing what we’ve just discussed, let’s write down the good and the best outcome of that situation. Think complete restoration. Our God has no limits!
Rest in it and thank God for that best outcome in advance, because if you can perceive it, God can achieve it.
Matthew 6:27 tells us that our worry doesn’t change a thing and it does not add any time to our lives, in fact, I’ll add that worry takes time from our lives. And if that is true, then I'm also going to say the opposite is true: which is that meditating on good things (the opposite of worry) adds to our lives. Adding peace, adding joy, adding security, stability, and adding to our confidence in God. Think of all the time you have spent worrying about something. If you combine all those moments together, I'm willing to bet we’ve each lost, weeks, even months, of our lives on worry. Friends, we can’t keep meditating on discouraging things, yet expecting to have peace. In order to receive what we have yet to accomplish, we have to do something different. So, let’s abide and remain in thought of the best-case scenario. We act as if those good things already are happening. Yes, it may feel weird and crazy to celebrate something that hasn’t happened yet, but our God can do some amazing things that are just out of this world! So, we meditate on the day we are healed, the day that relationship is restored, the day our addictions are cured, the day our depression lifts, the day our anxiety subsides.
Meditating on these good outcomes and future blessings is also a way of showing our faith to God. Faith is the confidence in what we hope for and the evidence of the things we cannot yet see. Faith is evidence. Proof! So, if we are meditating on good things that have not even happened yet, that is evidence that God can bring that good thing into existence. Amen!