Distracted from Godly Meditation

God is genuinely interested in the things that interest you. And He’s more than willing to speak to your heart about them. He longs for your times of biblical meditation and for you to listen to His clear and righteous direction for your life. For more messages from Charles Stanley, including this week’s broadcast, go to www.intouch.org/watch

Dear Lord,
Today…….I am asking all my prayer warriors to say a prayer that may help others. So many people are hurting right now. Many are struggling with finances and need jobs. Some are facing foreclosure and don’t even know how they are going to make it from week to week.. Many are lonely. . Many are heartbroken. . Many are facing sickness and health is fading. . Some are dealing with difficult family members. Many have lost HOPE.. Tonight, let us put our prayers and faith together decree and declare breakthrough over our families. Financial miracles WILL take place. Jobs WILL be found. Our Bodies WILL be made whole & sickness WILL flee. Marriages and relationships WILL be restored. Family members WILL find Jesus. Heartbreaks WILL be healed. JOY WILL be restored and HOPE WILL be found. In Jesus Name. Amen!!!!!! Keep God First…….

I was talking to this lady this week and she was telling me where she worked and, uh, what she did and the people that worked around her and here’s what she said on Friday mornings, the group of people she works around and they were probably in the thirties, forties, fifties, somewhere thereabouts.
Uh, she said on Friday mornings when we all get to work, they’re talking about partying that night.
And she says, in fact, um, that’s about all they talk about where they gonna drink beer together, where they gonna have fun together, whatever that is involved.
And that’s the way they begin. Their Fridays can’t wait to get off of work.
And she says, what I notice is they don’t do a very good job of what they’re doing while they’re there.
And she’s a trainer and she says I can see them slacking off on Fridays because their mind is only getting together and drinking on Friday night.
And she says I’ve had a curfew home late on Friday evening.
That’s not the kind of meditation I’m talking about because that’s what they are doing.
Their mind is consumed about tonight, what they gonna do where they’re gonna do it.
Who they gonna do it with? The meditation of the Word of God is meditation.
Thinking about being consumed by your thoughts about the Lord Jesus Christ and what he’s doing in your life, what you’d like for Him to do.
I’m talking about meditation that strengthens you brings you closer to God cause you to have an intimate relationship with Him.
Makes it possible for you to hear what God is saying to you about what concerns you, what troubles you, what brings you joy or whatever, this is the kind of meditation we’re talking about.
So when I think about it, think about it in this light, it’s a private conversation that you and the Lord have.
And he’s more than willing to speak to your heart about any subject you want to talk about.
Because his goal watch this.
His goal is for you to listen to Him so he can give you clear, good, righteous, accurate, wise direction for your life so that you can become the person he created you to become God is genuinely personally interested in everything in your life that interests you.
Is he interested in your sin? Yes. And what’s his goal to convict you to make you so miserable?
You will lay it down. Is he interested in the good things you do?
Yes, he is because He will reward you for them.
So I want you to think clearly about what we’re talking about.
When we talk about meditation, we’re talking about setting our focus upon God to listen to Him.
You’ll recall that the Children of Israel spent 400 years in Egyptian bondage.
And you will remember that one night, the death angel came through Egypt and all of those who did not have the blood over the door post in their house, their one of their Children died.
And so you’ll remember that they were released by Pharaoh.
And uh they came down across the desert, down to the uh sea, Red Sea.
And just when Pharaoh thought he had them trapped, got opened the door of the sea, they walked through on dry land and the waters covered the Egyptians.
Then they finally made it to the edge of the promised land.
There’s the border and there’s Canon over there, they could see it. So Moses did a wise thing.
He sent 12 spies to check it out, bring back to us the news that we need to know about what’s going on.
So they came back and uh Joshua and Caleb gave this awesome report about all the things that were there, but they could, they could handle it.
It would be warfare, but they could handle it.
But then there are those who did not meditate upon watch this and listen very carefully. This sermon.
They did not meditate upon what God said.
They meditated upon what they saw what they feared, what they felt.
And so the scripture says in numbers chapter 14, then all the congregation lifted up the voices and cried and the people wept that night.
All the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron and the whole congregation said to them, would that we had died in the land of Egypt or would that we had died in the wilderness?
Why is the Lord bringing us into the land to fall by the sword?
Our wives and our Children, little ones become plunder. Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?
So they said to one another, let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt.
That’s how absolutely erroneous meditation on our self efforts and our abilities.
Now talents as God, Joshua and Caleb focused their attention upon God, the rest of them focused their attention upon themselves, upon possibility of defeat upon the possibility of losing their loved ones.
So here was two attitudes and watch this carefully.
You have the privilege of having a Godly positive attitude depending upon God for every aspect of your life, or you can live like the world lives doing your best to satisfy your needs in all kinds of sinful, wicked, diabolical ways.
And if you look around you, most people are not focused on God, they’re focused on their pleasure, their drinking their sex, their money, and where is God?
Because somewhere along the way, they’ve been convinced that they can handle it, they can’t handle it.
Nobody is handling it without God, no one.
And so this whole message is about the idea of our focus and our focus on meditation.
Meditation means setting apart time where God and I together you say, well, how do we do that?
We’ll come to that setting apart a time where you and God watch this, you and God alone.
It’s better that way. Talk to God about your life, whatever concerns you is of concern to God.
So he’s a God who desires the best for us.
So when we think about that, ask yourself this question, how much time in any given day, did just you and God have a little time for yourselves and you talk to Him and listen to Him.
I dare say most Christians don’t do it the opportunity and think about this.
God is not gonna ever fail to show up when you set aside time to meet with Him.
Never. He’s gonna be there and he’s gonna be there to answer your questions and they give you a sense of direction and encourage you and help you forgive you.
He’s there to, to help us to become the person that He, there’s Destin those to me.
And so when I think about the rewards, what would you say? Well, what’s that gonna profit me?
Here’s what you can expect when you spend time alone with God, you say, well, now wait a minute, what am I supposed to be doing?
Listen, don’t try to figure out what you’re gonna do.
Just set aside some time that you and not you and anybody, you alone get together with God.
You say, well, where do I go get in the closet?
That’s the only place you got, you get in your bedroom locked, shut the door, whatever it might be, it’s you alone with God.
How do I know God’s gonna be there because he promised to be.
Here’s what he said to every believer. I’ll never leave you nor forsake you.
I don’t have, I have to wonder where He is. Well, I can’t see Him.
He’s, he’s bigger than being able to be seen. Well, well, I, I can’t hear Him.
You haven’t listened to Him. God is willing to speak to you personally about you and your life and your future.
If you’re willing to listen, number one meditation before the Lord will quieten your spirit, calm your sensitivities.
He will enlighten your mind to think like he thinks so we’ll do what he says.
Do he will increase your energy to make it possible for you to obey Him in every circumstance.
He will purify your heart by exposing sin. So you’ll know exactly. So I don’t know what to confess.
He’ll show you. He will enlarge your view of, of himself. That Almighty God is almighty.
He has all things under his control. Likewise.
He will increase your love for Him when you spend time with Him, increase your love. For him.
For example, if you have ever loved anybody really loved anybody, you want to spend time with him.
Now, that may have, that may indicate something to us.
If I don’t want to spend time with him, it must mean I don’t love him.
If I love him, I’ll spend time with him. You have a greater sense of faith.
You can, you, you can face things you normally would not face because that’s the, that’s the strength and the evidence of His presence in your life, strengthen your faith.
The more time you spend with Him, the greater your faith increase your awareness of the presence of God.
There’s nothing that increases your awareness of the presence of God, like being alone with Him and just saying, Lord, I’m here to listen and then infuse you with joy.
There’s an awesome sense of indescribable joy and completeness and peace and sense of security when you’ve spent time with God, no matter what you’re facing or who you’re facing.
That’s why all through the scriptures, we find God’s servant doing just that and that’s meditating.
So when you think about your conversation with God, you say, well, you know, I don’t know what to say.
You don’t have to worry about that.
You say, well, I don’t know how to ask, watch this carefully when you spend time with Him and you get along with Him, the Holy Spirit and most people are, they just ire this the Holy Spirit who lives within you will guide you into what you’re thinking, what you’re asking what you’re seeking.
That’s one of his primary responsibilities is to give guns. You don’t have to think it up.
You say, well, well, he will, he remind me of my sin. Yes, to make me feel guilty. Yes.
Why does he want me to feel guilty?
Because he wants you to feel righteous and godly and they want you to have a pure heart.
So all meditation is not some pleasant attitude.
It depends on how you and I have been living, but it’s always for our good.
So when I think about being quiet, listening to him asking him for direction, does he care?
Yes, he cares if you ever trust that Jesus Christ is your savior.
From that moment, you have the Holy Spirit in your heart.
One of his primary goals is to do what watch this together, to draw you closer and closer and your attitude, your feeling, you can’t get any closer than Him.
He he’s already in you. And so he’s changing your attitude to get you closer and closer in your relationship to God so that you and God are walking in harmony with each other every moment of your life.
That’s who He is. And one of the best ways to meditate upon the Lord is with the open Bible.
What does he, what does he want to say to you? What is he saying?
To you because God wants to give direction for our life. And meditation is the primary way of doing it.
Being quiet, listening to what he says says, well, um is God willing to speak to us?
Many people can’t hear. Is he willing? Yes, he is.
God would not expect you and me to live in this world and, and to be righteous people, Godly people without his presence and his help by the Holy Spirit because He knows we couldn’t.
And so I say all that to say this, the Children of Israel came to the blessing God had provided.
He inspires to affirm so they could affirm to the people of Israel, what he was getting ready to do for them.
And instead of listening to God’s servants, they chose not to listen and they cost them 40 long years after they’d already spent years in Egyptian bondage.
So think about this. If you’re not used to listening to God, what do you miss?
You don’t know the answer to that.
You don’t, you don’t know what you’ve missed if you’ve not been listening to God, but I can tell you one thing you’ve missed his best.
Can you improve on God’s best? No.
But if you’re not listening to him, meditating upon him, taking time to be quiet with him and just listening, reading a passage of scripture, letting it sink into your heart.
If you’ve not taken time to do that, then you’ve missed something and watch this.
This is God’s holy gift to every single one of His Children.
Holy gift, adequate gift, eternal gift to every one of his Children.
He doesn’t want us living like the world lives.
He doesn’t want us thinking like the world thinks God has a different, higher, holy, wonderful, righteous, fulfilling, eternal plan for all of his Children if we’ll listen.
So here’s some attitudes that short circuit, your faith.
This is the short short circuits of faith and you miss God’s blessing.
So number one is bitterness.
If you allow bitterness into your life and you focus on that instead of love and forgiveness and all the rest, you pay a penalty.
And I think about people who are living with bitterness.
If you ask them, are you better know and not realizing how better they are.
Secondly, there’s anger. When you focus on anger, it gets stronger and stronger and stronger in your life.
There is a penalty to pay. If you’re angry.
Thirdly, there’s hatred, there are people who live with hatred, you can watch the TV and listen to the news, hatred, bitterness, resentment, hostility.
These are attitudes that are destructive and you cannot have a right relationship with God.
If these attitudes are present in your life and then there’s unforgiveness, unforgiveness puts you in a desert, you can’t have a right relationship with God.
If you’re unforgiving to anybody you say, but you don’t know what they’ve done to me.
Well, let me ask you this does what they have done to you match what we did to Jesus on the cross?
No. And what was he saying? Father, forgive them for. They know not what they do.
What do you, what do you focus on in life?
No one said, somebody said to you. What do you think? What do you think about most?
Could you say God? Could you say when it comes to serious thinking?
I think about God unforgiveness, unforgiveness has a big penalty with it.
Hostility. There are people who are very hostile, they’re angry, they’re hostile.
They, they wanna hurt people, they, they, they want to do people damage, they wanna get even and if you ask them even with who they can’t tell you because you see, here’s the issue, the issue is the wars on the inside and it’s a war that goes on and on and on.
And so hostility stirs up all kind of stuff.
Think about that when you pick up the newspaper or you listen to your television, look at the hostility that we hear about that.
We see hostile, angry, bitter, resentful, murderous resentment and resentment is one of those edgy things.
You resent people because of what they have because of who they are because of how they look be because what they drive where they live, how they dress resentfulness says there’s something in me that doesn’t like them, don’t make me define it.
Just I don’t like. You see, this is an attitude that’s destructed.
And then of course, there’s just pure unbelief. I don’t believe God does that.
I don’t believe God will meet all my needs. I, I don’t believe God.
I don’t believe God’s interested in my life. Unbelief is very destructive.
This is why meditation upon God thinking about Him, reading His word, dwelling upon His word is so important.
It increases our faith. Then there’s grudge who holds a grudge.
There are people who hold grudges all of their life. They just can’t, they just can’t forgive.
They can’t forget. I think about families that are broken up, divorce and all the rest and their, their, their grudges, resentment, hostility, and anger and unforgiveness.
All of these things just sort of run together to make a person absolutely miserable.
No wonder they run to the bars. No wonder they drink till they are unconscious.
Now we know why they do.
Because if I’m living in sin, I don’t want to feel so sinful.
So I drink something that just sort of knocks that feeling out of me and I can just relax and this, that and, and so forth.
The next thing you know, one sin leads to another. You’re gonna meditate on something.
If you’ve never trusted Jesus as your savior, you’re already meditating on something that is not gonna be healthy, good or good for you or your family.
And then of course, fear, fear absolutely grips multitudes and multitudes.
If you ask them what they’re fearful of, they can’t tell you.
Well, I’m just, I’m, I’m just afraid that things are so bad.
So we, we could go on with the list.
I’m simply saying that focusing your attention above anything and everything that leaves God out of your life is gonna be destructive.
The Children of Israel were looking into the promised land.
They’d already been through the wilderness and the miracles of God, they’re looking into the promised land.
They’re listening to two saints of God Joshua and Caleb, they’re listening to them say we can do it.
We know we can do it.
We’ve seen we, the rest of this 10 spies, they saw the same thing but they didn’t believe we can do it.
So uh and I don’t, I don’t think we can.
Now, if they had known what that decision was gonna cost them, they wouldn’t have made it.
You see, we don’t think about the consequences of our decisions before you take the next drink.
Think about it before you hop into bed with somebody.
You better think about it before you, before you figure you can steal and get by with it.
You better think about it. God hates sin and loves the sinner.
Our focus and our attitude and our meditation.
Meditation is what I’m thinking about and what, what’s, what’s going on within my thinking.
And when I’m thinking about the way the Lord wants me to think about him and his attitude and what he wants for my life.
I’m gonna come out, I’m gonna come out better no matter what.
But if I don’t, it’s gonna cost me, think about this, looking into the promised land or looking back at all the Children who died, all the families who died, all the pain, hostility and anger and bitterness, resentment, murder, all the rest that was in Egypt.
And you think they would look at the promised land.
Look back at that and say that’s what we want. That’s not what they wanted. They were totally deceived.
Watch this fear will deceive you. They could, they could look both ways now watch this carefully.
All of us have a choice.
I can either look at the promised land or I can look at the wilderness 40 years eaten, bitten by animals, snakes and all of us.
I have a choice. You have that choice.
You have a choice to dwell upon God.
Obey him, surrender your life to him and let him demonstrate to you how awesome he can bless you.
You have that choice. You can listen to the world break all the commandments, do anything you wanna do, Dr Corr, you name it, you have a choice to do that or you have a choice of walking with the Lord Jesus Christ with real joy.
A walk that brings you real completeness, real fulfillment, real love. You have a choice.
It’s whatever you choose. To dwell upon. That’s the way you’ll go.
And my prayer for you is that you will be wise enough to make the right choice to spend time alone with the Lord.
And when you find yourself heading in the wrong direction, don’t excuse yourself, don’t rationalize it.
But admit God, I’m, I’m heading in the wrong direction.
Please turn me around God before I go too far.
Meditation upon the Lord and upon his word, you say, well, what verses should I meditate upon?
Well, I, I go back to this one. Here’s what David said. Listen carefully.
Let the words of my mouth. What I say, the meditations of my heart.
What I feel be acceptable in your sight. God’s viewpoint. Oh Lord, my strength and my redeemer.
Let the words of my mouth, the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight.
Oh Lord, my strength and my redeemer. He has the best for you. It’s your choice.
Amen. Father. Thank you for your precious word that guides us, guards us, protects us, enables us rejoices within our heart.
And I pray that every person here today who has never trusted you as their savior will be wise enough today and trust the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal savior surrender their life to you, watch you begin a new work in their heart.
And every believer here, Father, whose time is totally filled with things that are necessary, but also things that are unnecessary and that are very destructive.
Let the Holy Spirit bring a sense of pure guilt in the life of every person who’s living in sin, disobeying you knowing it.
When you have provided them the very best we love you father and we praise you.
Thank you for your patience with us.
But I pray Lord let not a single person walk out of this building without having settled.
Were they going to spend eternity or laying aside all those things that hinder, you’re prepared, ready to offer blessings that you have their name on them.
In Jesus. Name. Amen.