Keith Battle - I Pledge Allegiance to the Word - Part 3

I pledge allegiance to the Word of God. That’s our series; we’re in part three right now, and I know I’ve held you for a long time, but let’s get into this word. I want you to stand, if you can physically, as I read one verse of scripture that will serve as our launching pad for this part of the series. It is in Joshua 1:8. Ah! Lord, thank you for your Word. Job said, «I love His Word; I treasure His Word more than my necessary food.» That’s right; that’s major—that’s treasuring it right there. I treasure your Word; it is important to me because it changes our lives. It gives us wisdom; it gives us direction; it rebukes us; it reproves us; it exhorts us; it educates us. The Word of God is worthy of our attention and allegiance. With all the things and people in life, we should pledge our allegiance first and foremost to His Word. Yes, sir! The Bible says in Joshua 1:8, the New International Version states, «Keep this book of the law always on your lips.» This book of the law—let me just teach this for a second—when the Word of God is being spoken to Joshua right here, all that existed in written form of the Bible was the first five books, called the Book of the Law. Joshua is the sixth book of the Bible, and during his time, he didn’t have all 66 books that we have; he only had access to Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. That’s called the Torah or the Pentateuch—it consists of five books. So God says, «This book of the law, what I have put in writing for you, always keep it on your lips.» We could say, for us, to keep the Word of God on our lips. It’s more than just the Pentateuch; it’s the poetical books, the historical books, the prophetical books, the gospels, the epistles, and the Book of Revelation. So all of the Word of God should be kept on our lips. We should meditate—everybody say, «meditate,» meditate, meditate—on it day and night. That’s where I want to land today. You may be seated. I want to talk about meditating on the Word of God.

Meditating, by definition, is simply to pay close attention and to give significant time to something. We do it all the time; it’s just not always on the Word. We meditate on problems. You know how you know you meditate on a problem? You keep checking your phone to see where the problem is. Did it come home yet? Did my number hit? We meditate on stuff all the time. We meditate on problems; we meditate on worry; we meditate on fear. Some things are good; some of us were meditating last night. Talk to me; you know I already knew I was going to say something. Get a close-up of this right here that says «commanders.» Now don’t play with me; get me in the camera. I’m going to walk over here, right here; where’s the camera? This me! Bam! It’s been a long time, baby! Who am I talking to? It’s been a long time. Don’t be mad at us; we ain’t used to this! I’ll tell you a lesson in it: if you get toxicity out of anything, it can grow. I said if you get toxicity out of anything, it can grow! You better say it got better fast!

Wow! Meditation means to turn something over and over again in your mind. It means to reflect on it; it is contemplative work—not just to read but to reflect. At its apex, it is to apply the Word to my life. That is how meditation works. Meditation means to soak in the Word so much that it gets down in my heart and comes out in my life, in my conversations, in my decisions, and in my choices. That’s what it means to meditate, and I want to talk about meditating on the Word today. All I’m going to do today is show you how I was taught to do it. This is how I meditate on the Word. I’m going to give you an exercise; it is effective. I thank God for Pastor Larry PA because he actually showed me this. This is how I do messages. So, you know, I guess if you do this well, you just come up here and do the whole thing; it is a part of it. But this doesn’t necessarily take a bunch of resources and materials; it just takes focus, right?

So this is how I do it: I read a verse. We’re just going to practice on this verse. I’m going to meditate on Joshua 1:8. Are you with me? This is how it reads: «Keep this book of the law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.» Now, that’s reading it. Meditating on it actually means I pause at different parts that jump out at me. I let it jump out at me; I pull it out; I emphasize certain words that I think deserve attention. It’s like last night when I was watching the game; Minister Patrick Huber sent me a text, and we were going…