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The book I’ve gifted people more than any other is How Am I Smart? by Kathy Koch. The author recognizes that the question shouldn’t be “am I smart?” because we all are. Nor should it be, “how smart am I?” because that question cannot be answered accurately. 

The assertion is that we’re all smart, we just need to figure out in what way we’re smart. Kathy Koch uses the research of two Harvard professors to identify 8 types of intelligence, or “smarts.” These smarts may or may not line up with classroom smarts, the only type of smart we often acknowledge.

Ms. Koch offers these 8 smarts to help parents better understand their kids but it can help teachers better understand their students, as well as help anyone to better understand others and themselves. 

The 8 smarts are logic-smart, picture-smart, people-smart, self-smart, body-smart, nature-smart, music-smart and word-smart. I won’t go into the meaning of each; their mere names help, but reading the book is necessary to understand them fully.

My point here is not to divulge the 8 smarts as much as to activate the thinking that there are different ways people can be smart. It helps a person immensely to understand that they learn and function well in certain aspects so they can gain much needed self-confidence and accomplish more in their life.

Most importantly, I want to add two more smarts to the list. One of these two smarts is more important than any other, and as we raise our kids, as well as manage our own lives, this is the smart we most want them and us to have.

The two smarts I propose to add are world-smart and eternity-smart. The contrast between the two is greater than that of any of the other smarts and their respective counterparts. For example, a self-smart person will recognize they process thoughts better alone where they can internalize without distraction, whereas a people-smart person sees that they need to be around people more because they manage better in social settings and accomplish more through social interaction and external processing.

World-smart people are often considered the smartest people, but compared to their eternity-smart counterparts, their smart has parameters that block their access to a whole other world of wisdom and knowledge. For example, they can tell you all about physics and speak wisely about all things humanistic, but they know nothing about things after this world age, outside mortality or the order of things beyond this universe. 

All of Kathy Koch’s 8 smarts have advantages and disadvantages. But being eternity-smart allows us understanding of the truths God lays out for us about Himself, our enemy the devil and eternity, while giving us the clearest perspective of this life through the lens of eternity, making us actually smarter about this world than those who are only world-smart. But the world-smart, while they may be keen to the knowledge within the box of this age and system, are numb to the words and ways of God.

As we raise our kids and prepare them for life, let’s be sure to prepare them for eternal life. All these smarts are gained through a combination of genetics and environment. Eternity-smart is no exception. We’re all born with a need for eternal life and the capacity to understand that need and how to fill it with the gift of Jesus, thus the term childlike faith. As parents, we have the ability to train our kids up in that smart or to train it out of them, opting to train them to be world-smart instead. 

For a great lesson that helps us grow as an eternity-smart person, watch this:

Francis Chan Rope Illustration

Marriage takes effort. Every married couple knows that all too well. But as with other worthwhile endeavors, it’s often more important to work smart than to work hard. If our goal is to value our spouse (and it should be), it’s smart to designate significant time to meditating on our spouse. 

My use of the word meditation is different from many in our culture. The meditation I’m referring to is rumination, or giving repetitive consideration to a subject. 

Some animals, like cattle, chew the cud. Cud is partially digested food. I for one am glad humans don’t chew the cud. Gross!

But humans, more than any other animal, can ruminate mentally. Our thought process is often to rethink what we’ve thought about previously. A lot of our meditation we do without (pardon the ironic pun) even thinking about it.

Any Christ follower who wants to make the most of their walk with God will find it necessary to spend time meditating on His Word and in prayer. My early morning time alone with God gets my focus and attitude into a productive place; I’ve become so accustomed to that daily time that I’m practically addicted to having it.

I realized sometime back, though, that if I need meditation time to help me value a perfect and holy God and keep my relationship with Him strong, then I probably should spend some regular time meditating on the qualities of my wonderful, albeit imperfect wife. 

Here are three guidelines I recommend, and I’ll include some examples from my own spousal meditation:

1. Identify a strong character quality in your spouse. My wife has a very strong sense of commitment. For her, that means she’s dog-with-a-bone committed to God and to me, her husband. I see this everyday as she helps me accomplish things I cannot do alone. This light really shone brightly during my stroke recovery, when I had some serious limitations. She was and is tireless in whatever she’s committed to, and I’m super blessed to have her as my wife.

2. Identify a physical quality you love about your spouse. For my wife, it’s her lips. She has beautiful lips. It’s one of the features that attracted me to her thirty-seven years ago, and I still find myself captivated by them, especially when she’s talking.

3. Reflect on something your spouse has done recently that you appreciate greatly. My wife is truly a Proverbs 31 wife, and her modus operandi is to focus her efforts on entrepreneurial projects and to be industrious and productive in them. She holds Super Host status with Air B & B with our Coastal Country Cottage, which she renovated, marketed and now operates with the highest possible quality. She is also overseeing the renovation of a rental property we hope to soon sell at a profit and does so with the highest level of quality and style. All these projects she does without dropping a single degree the quality of the day to day family, church/ministry and professional responsibilities to which she’s committed herself.

One more suggestion: try not to compare your spouse to others. As I write this I can imagine readers comparing their spouse to mine. But God has given each person a unique set of qualities that renders them incomparable. Focus is the key, and as I quiz my five-year-old grandson, focus means thinking about how many things? One. So keep your focus on your spouse and their best qualities.

I highly recommend spousal meditation, and not just once but regularly. I promise that, just as our walk with God is made better by taking time to meditate on His awesome qualities, so will be the walks we’re in with our spouses as we add spousal meditation to our lifestyles. 

Marriage is one of the most puzzling things on earth. How can a couple have a fulfilling marriage for life?

There’s no shortage of answers to that question; just search on YouTube and you’ll be inundated. But how many of those answers are truly helpful? Not many.

People are searching for the wrong kind of love. And therein lies the problem. The romantic, feeling driven love was created by the same God who created marriage, but it wasn’t intended to sustain for a lifetime. Its purpose is to attract two people who will soon move into a different kind of love. It’s that love that sustains our marriages for the decades that we live together in matrimony. That love is agape, from the Greeks, and it’s the best kept secret on earth. 

Agape-love is exactly the same thing as grace, and it truly is amazing. It’s what Jesus introduced to us by removing our sin with His sacrificial crucifixion-death. Agape-grace-love shows up in my marriage in this way: 

My dear wife, I have decided in advance to show you every kindness regardless of what you do or don’t do. You need not earn anything because I have decided to love you without regard to any circumstances. I stand ready to forgive and forget any wrong for which you may or may not be responsible. This is the love with which Jesus has loved me and is the love present in me with His Spirit. Since this love comes from God to me, how can I withhold it from you, my friend, my sister in Christ and my dear wife?

Two other really cool secrets.

First, a married couple who both live in grace toward each other will soon find themselves no longer lacking in the romantic love they once had. That’s right, the path back to marital romance is through grace. 

The second and final secret is this. Grace isn’t only the secret to a great marriage, it’s the secret to any relationship. God used it to make our relationships with Him awesome, and it’ll make friendships, business partnerships, parent-child and every other relationship the best they can be.

What’s the secret to a fulfilling marriage? In a word, grace.

And it’s Heaven’s best kept secret.

This week my wife and I attended the annual Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference at Ridgecrest Conference Center near Ashville, NC. This was my fourth time attending and my wife’s third. 

This was a special year for me because the blog I write each week (this one) placed second in the writers’ contest, and my book, Brilliant Faith, was a finalist.

It was special for a couple other reasons, too. Two friends, Lindsay and Courtney, attended for the first time at the encouragement of my wife and me. I first attended in 2016 when my friend, Andrea, a great literary talent, encouraged me, so I wanted to take a page from her book (pardon the pun) and urge some other aspiring authors to attend. They both loved it, along with Lindsay’s son, Braden, a college student who sees himself publishing a book in the future as he pursues other life interests.

Being at the conference always reminds me that authors come in all personality types and backgrounds, with a broad array of varying interests and a diverse range of abilities as writers. The one thing they (actually, we) have in common is we have a literary work within us. It may be a novel, a novella, a devotional, a book of poetry, children’s book or book of photographs It could be an instructional, inspirational or biographical book, or some combination of the aforementioned genres and sorts.

What I’m getting to is that, if you’re reading this, which means you’re literate, I believe you have some sort of publication in you. 

Often, the first thought a future author has is “I could never write a book; I’m just not qualified.” If that’s you, I’d love to change your mind. If you’ll honestly search your heart for a second you’ll likely admit that you’ve had the idea to write a book before. Let me tell you a few things that may give you some confidence:

1. You don’t have to be a “writer” to be an author. One of the best books I’ve ever read is Forgiving the Nightmare. It’s author, Mark Sowersby, tells me that when he wrote his first draft, he used no punctuation and no capitalization. He gave the draft to his wife who did a grammatical edit, being careful to keep in the draft her husband’s personality and intent, and then forwarded the manuscript to the publisher. Mark is intelligent and a great communicator, but the most efficient way for him to write his story (You’ll be amazed if you read it, I promise.) was to just get the words down, knowing more work would be done with them later.

2. Everyone has an interesting story; it just needs to be transferred from their mind to the page. Maybe your story is your life’s story because you’ve lived long enough to include a great many experiences. Or maybe your story would be a certain experience you’ve had or witnessed. Whichever the case, there’s a story in you that just needs to be transferred to the written page.

3. If you feel your strength is in your knowledge or insight, rather than your story, then there are people who would benefit from what you have to offer; they just need you to write it for them.

I firmly believe everyone has something to say. They just need to realize it themselves.

So please consider authoring a book. Then, go ahead and start writing it. Then, keep going until it’s complete. You won’t regret it!

Tom Wolfe’s Novel, You Can’t Go Home Again, makes an assertion few would challenge. The title is a self-evident statement, so it isn’t necessary to read the book to understand its general meaning. 

Anyone who’s returned to their former home finds at least two things that have changed, often almost beyond recognition: their home and themselves. Add for consideration that the person’s memory of their home is askew and we realize going “home” again really is impossible.

I learned this reality over the years, each time I would visit my parents. My perspective was evolving and so was my family of origin. It was kind of sad, realizing that ever so often we had to say goodbye to a tradition or familiar set of circumstances and move forward accepting something different. 

I’ve realized recently, though, that we can no more leave home than we can go back home. Both of my parents passed away eight years ago, and although they’re never coming back, their almost tangible influence is still very real. I both appreciate and enjoy the memories of lessons they taught me over half a century ago. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t get away from my parents.

My siblings and I – all five us – have remained close. Our sibling text group stays pretty busy, each of us sharing thoughts and feelings we’re experiencing that relate somehow to our years growing up together. 

Social media has made it much easier to also stay in touch with friends from life’s previous chapters; every time I see a post or message from an old friend, who is very much a part of my home of origin, it, too, keeps me connected to home. 

So while it’s true that you can’t go home again, it’s also true that you can’t ever leave home. 

It could be said that we’re caught between leaving home and returning home, never fully free to do either. While that’s a precarious position, it’s neither dire nor dangerous. The fact is, whether we realize it or not, we are where we are and we are who we are, and we’re always dependent upon the protective and guiding hand of the Almighty. Being unable to either leave or return home is still an okay place to be. Besides, if I have the choice, I’m not sure whether I would choose leaving or returning. And the best place to be is neither of those, but in the place of walking with God, and He is here walking with us in this no-man’s land between home and away.

This is just another of a multitude of ways of looking at life. And life from any perspective is good and comfortable because we have the promise from Jesus that He’ll never leave us or turn His back on us. So with Him, we can always be at home and leaving is never a desire or reality. There’s one more problem to which Jesus is the answer. A la Romans 7:25, thank You God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. And it always is.

“Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭7‬:‭25‬ ‭NLT‬‬

My nephew will be married soon. I wrote some comments to him and his fiancé. I’ve adapted them for a general readership and offer them here to any who are soon to be wed. CONGRATS provides an acrostical structure.) 

Choice.

Perhaps you’ve been choosey. Well, I think it’s paid off for you to be choosey. Probably both of you have chosen not to pursue other opportunities; and because of that, you were able to make the choice you’ve made. You’ve chosen wisely. So congrats on the choice you both have made!

Over.

The single phase of your life will soon be over. I encourage you to be completely over that phase. Don’t think, speak or act like a single person. Instead, approach everything together as a married couple, two people in complete unity. The old mentality of singleness will present itself to you and seek to be invited in. Tell it that it’s no longer welcome in your life, that it’s been replaced forever.

Never look back.

Never second guess your decision to marry each other. You’ve given ample thought and prayer to your decision with counsel from wise people who love you. There can never be regrets or “what ifs” about your past. Having a good marriage means looking ahead, not behind.

Grace.

Grace means you’ve decided that, no matter what your spouse does or doesn’t do, you’re going to show them kindness. This is what Jesus has brought to us and it’s the most important factor in a successful marriage.

Relatives.

Relatives can be a negative for a marriage, but you have family (and let’s add close friends, too, because they’re like family) who are for you and not against you. Surround yourselves with those people and keep a safe distance from the others. When you need support of some kind, go to your advocates who will build your marriage up, not the adversaries who would tear it down. Remember, a boxer goes to his own corner between rounds, not to his opponent’s. Speak to your wedding officiate before your wedding and ask them to issue an invitation to your wedding party during your ceremony, asking them to indicate by applause their commitment to always support your marriage and to never undermine it.

Always.

Marriage is for always and without any breaks (the only Scriptural exception being a brief abstention from physical intimacy so you can pray separately without distraction). I encourage you to go into your marriage with no plan B. You will be together for the entire time that you both are on this earth, beginning on your wedding day. Try not to see that as a pressure, but as a privilege. Think about it. You two get to do for the rest of your life the very things you so long for now – being together, tackling challenges together, parenting together, accomplishing things together, talking together, laughing together, crying together and sleeping together. What a wonderful thing – marriage – and God created it for you to enjoy together! Always.

Together.

I encourage you to do everything you can together rather than separately. There’ll be some things you’ll do individually, and you guys will figure out when that’s best. But I think it’s best to have your finances together, rather than his and hers. Spend as much time as possible together and make all your significant decisions together.

Sui Generis.

Sui Generis is a Latin term that means unique. Remember, there isn’t another couple like you. There never has been and never will be. You’ll get a lot of advice. You should prayerfully consider advice from the wise and caring, but remember that your relationship wasn’t created with a cookie cutter, so you can make your own decisions. And some of your decisions may be different from what any other couple would make. Most importantly, seek God in your decision-making. He’s the one who created two unique people and brought you together as an even more unique couple. 

Congrats to you soon-to-be-married! I wish and pray God’s will for you, His very best! May the journey you both take together be fulfilling and inspiring! Love and Prayers!

My wife, Sharlene, and I have six children. We’re very proud of all of them. They’re all doing very well in life, but some of them have chosen to reject the life of faith in Jesus that we tried to prepare them for during their formative years. And while we’re so very pleased with pretty much all of their life-paths, the path choice of doing life without friendship with Jesus is heart-breaking for us. I know we aren’t the only Christian parents in this situation. So I want to offer some advice that will, hopefully, be both encouraging and enlightening.

Make sure they know you love them. My wife and I received a letter from our son letting us know he had made some decisions in his life, one of which was to not live by faith in Jesus. This news destroyed us and all we could do for several days was cry, hug and pray. 

As we told our other kids about their brother’s letter, they all came straight to me. “Now, Dad, you’ve gotta just love him.”

Every one of them – and Sharlene – said the same words. It bothered me that they thought I needed coaching in my response.

“Of course I’m going to love him! But if I get a chance to talk with him, I’m going to deal with this.” I honestly thought I could change his mind if I could just sit down with him.

“No, just love him. That’s all you need to do. He knows how you feel; he’s heard it his whole life. Now he just needs to know you love him.

Trust God with their journey. As Sharlene and I sat at dinner that week with our son and his wife, the Lord spoke very clearly to me, “The reason you feel you have to deal with this is because you don’t trust Me to do it.”

What my family were all trying to say to me God essentially said in a way that cut straight to my heart. Once I understood His perspective on it, I was able to be at peace with not being in control of it.

Back to the idea of just loving them for a second. It’s challenging to communicate love in an age when people equate love with approval. If you love me, you’ll approve my choices; if you don’t approve how can you expect me to feel love. We’ve learned that love must be shouted, while disapproval must be whispered, if said at all.

Don’t accept condemnation for their choices. One of the thoughts that invaded our minds was that we had made some mistakes that caused our son to reject Jesus. Two truths helped us get past that condemning idea: 

1. Sharlene heard a podcast speaker one day on her drive who pointed out that God Himself created his first two children without sin, placed them in a sinless environment and had fellowship with them every day; and they still chose to go against His plan for them. The point was that, if that can happen to the kids of our perfect Father, why would we take on condemnation if it happens to ours?
2. Days after receiving the letter, I preached a message on John 9 (The Man Born Blind). In this story, Jesus’ disciples asked him why the man was born blind. Was it his sin or his parents’ sin? Those were the only two possibilities in their minds. But Jesus opened their minds to a completely different possibility. It had nothing to do with the cause of the blindness; more important was the purpose of it. It was neither his or his parents’ sin, Jesus revealed, but so that the work of God could be manifest. The disciples were focused on the cause; Jesus pointed them to the purpose. Then He healed the man (the works of God) and fulfilled the purpose for the man’s blindness. We learned to focus on God’s purpose, knowing it’s ultimately to give our son eternal life and bring glory to God. We decided we’d focus on purpose and not cause.

Gather an army of prayer warriors. I don’t know how we would’ve gotten through those first weeks after receiving the letter without the prayers and encouragement of so many of our friends. Our small group basically saved our life during that season. That was seven years ago now, and we still depend upon the prayers of our Christian brothers and sisters.

See them as you would someone who isn’t your child who isn’t yet a Christ follower. We meet people all the time who are about our kids’ age who aren’t Jesus followers yet. We never even think of being compulsory or applying pressure to those people to accept Jesus. So why would we think that response would be effective – or appropriate – with our kids? We’ve learned to see our kids as friends. The age of our having authority over our children is gone. And we don’t want to be manipulative parents. We’ve decided to just be friends; that’s all we can really be anyway.

Obviously, I’m referring to prodigal kids who are adults living their own lives. For kids still under their parents roof and/or authority, I’m sure the advice should be different. 

If you’re the parent of a prodigal and would enlist Sharlene and me as prayer warriors, please leave your invite in the comments, no names necessary.

There’s a very simply way to raise your IQ. Maybe not easy to do, since it may go against your very nature, but the process is simple.

And it’s easy to understand. It’s also free, financially at least; no costly service or plan to purchase. But it will take some sacrifice. 

There are different ways to explain why humans are more intelligent than animals. From a physiological standpoint, we have more neurons in our brains’ cerebral cortex than other mammals do. And our brains’ different regions are able to strategically interact with each other; in other words, we can consider our own thoughts. A more everyday language way of saying it is that we have self-awareness. A human is the only earthly creature that can consciously, intentionally evaluate and make judgments about their inner selves.

So my premise is that if we can sharpen our self-awareness, we will then be increasing our intelligence. We have the opportunity to raise our IQ.

Pride, Scripture says, leads to self-destruction. It precedes a fall, precipitates failure. I think that’s because pride skews our self-awareness. It positions us to see ourselves as better than we actually are and others, including people, God and factors in our situations, as less than they really are. And since we overestimate ourselves and underestimate externals, surprisingly to ourselves, we fall. We fall in performance because we have fallen in intelligence. And we fall in intelligence because of pride.

This disease is known as intelligence deficiency due to pride (IDDTP). It originated in the heart of Satan and is highly contagious. By the way, he serves as the perfect example of IDDTP, having gone from arch angel level intelligence to a being so dumb that he continually challenges the invincible God of all creation. The good news is IDDTP is treatable. Self-administered under the supervision of the Holy Spirit, humility infusion has proven immediately effective at reversing IDDTP. Humility can even elevate intelligence beyond the baseline because it has the opposite effect of pride. 

Humility comes from a word that means dirt. It symbolizes the act of positioning oneself on the ground, the lowest possible position. From that perspective, a person can see themselves and externals in a more accurate light, which reactivates the cerebral cortex neuro-function and opens up intra-cerebral pathways, allowing us to assess and judge ourselves more accurately in relation to externals. 

In short: pride makes us dumb; humility makes us smart. And the only cost for the treatment is our self-destructive pride. I think I’ll try it.

Join me in raising your IQ?

David was nearly invincible on the battlefield, ten times greater as a warrior than his predecessor, able to hold his own with The Thirty and was as great a general and king as he was a warrior. How could the evil one ever snuff out the light of Israel? Apparently it would never happen, not against this anointed man of war.

A king would normally be with his troops in battle this time of year, but David was not in the arena in which he’d proven so successful. No, he was in a different arena now, and he was far less skillful in this one

What’s that he sees? A beautiful woman bathing. Who is she? Uriah’s wife. Wife? Wife! But David can’t walk away. Heck, he can’t even look away. He’s now in the arena of the lure. And he’s as good as caught. Defeated. Finally. 

Eve was without sin and living in the perfect environment with her perfect husband, and they talked everyday with the Perfect One, their Creator.

Don’t eat of that tree” God had said. Probably best to not touch it, not go near it, not even look at it.

Wow, that fruit is impressive. Must taste delicious. Certainly is beautiful. It’s the most potent brain food in the garden, she understands. 

With the help of the serpent, Eve finds the fruit irresistible. What was forbidden has now become the lure. She takes. She eats She shares. They disobey. Sin. Fallen.

Satan’s pretty good with this lure thing. Of course the flesh gives him a decided advantage. If only we could somehow gain an advantage over the devil and the flesh.

“Now we [believers in Jesus] have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.” (1 Corinthians 2:12)

“You are of God, little children, and have overcome [the spirits in the world that are against Christ], because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4)

So we actually  have gained an advantage over Satan, the flesh and the world (the unholy trinity). 

Every time one of us finds ourselves in trouble, in a seemingly vulnerable situation, in circumstances that appear bleak, it’s simply God luring our enemy so He can defeat him for us. 

Jesus on the cross was the lure and the empty grave was God defeating our enemy; now we have victory over sin, death, hell and the grave! God is obviously better with the lure than our enemy is. And He uses the same strategy in our lives; He calls us to surrender, to sacrifice, to death, so that He may lure our enemy into the trap that binds him and sets us free.

Let me please end with two encouraging thoughts from Scripture:

1. God will surely deliver you from the snare of the fowler (see Psalm 91:3)
2. Since Jesus has set us free, don’t let yourself be caught again by the yoke of our former slavery. (see Galatians 5:1)

Long ago, centuries before the advent of the self-help guru or the first however-many-easy-steps-to-whatever article was written, a formula guaranteeing prosperity and success was given, received and proven completely effective. This was some 3,500 years ago. The recipients of the guarantee immediately faced thirty-two major challenges. In thirty-one of those challenges they followed the plan and were successful. In the one that they didn’t follow the plan, they failed miserably. The guarantee was valid then, and it’s still valid today.

Moses was dead. But what God had given Moses was very much alive. God had given him the promise that this generation of Israelites would enter and occupy the land He had sworn to their ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He had given Moses the anointing to lead this Jewish nation that He verified with miracle after miracle. Most importantly, He had given Moses the Law. All these gifts were still alive; they just needed to be transferred to the leader God would use next. Enter Joshua.

As Joshua prepared himself and the Hebrew people for the mission – entering the land of Canaan – God delivered to Joshua the timeless foolproof formula for success. It had everything to do with God’s Law, which He had given through Moses. And the formula was very simple:

1. Think
2. Speak
3. Do

Think. The word God actually used for Joshua was meditate. Meditation in the ancient Hebrew sense is in some ways the very opposite of the way many people use it today. When people do meditations today, they’re attempting to achieve mental clarity and emotional calmness.

Biblical meditation is about filling the mind, not clearing it. And the way that’s done is by cycling the message of God through the mind over and over, constantly throughout the day and through the night. It’s doing mentally what cattle and some other animals do physically. These animals have more than one stomach, so when they first swallow their food they aren’t done with it. They bring it up again later and chew it some more. After a series of chewings and swallowings, their food is finally assimilated (the nutrients become living tissue, actually part of the animal’s body) 

That’s what God wanted for Joshua and his generation, that His Law would become part of who they were. For that to happen, they would need to follow His instructions to rehearse His precepts when they sat at home, when they walked down the road, when they lay down and when they rose again. Later, King Solomon would pen that a person becomes whatever they embrace mentally. To Joshua God was calling in advance for him to live out this truth He would reveal in a few hundred years through the wisdom of Solomon. 

This formula for us today, because of Jesus and the covenant He established for us, expands to include more than the Law of Moses. For us, it means the law of Christ or the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, as Paul wrote. The law of Christ is simply: believe in Jesus Christ, God’s Son for salvation. It also includes all of New Testament Scripture and the light it sheds on the Old Testament.

Speak. Let every word you say be My Law, whether as a direct quote or in keeping with it’s meaning, God was essentially saying to Joshua. That was the second part of the formula for success, although God actually said it first, before mentioning the meditating/thinking part of the instruction. 

Jesus would later teach that our words ultimately flow from whatever is in our hearts or minds, so our success in the speak piece depends much on what we do with the think piece.

Still, as James taught through his epistle, it’s wise to be intentional with our words, rather than just leaving our speech up to the natural flow from our hearts’ contents.

The bottom line is this: everything we say should line up with God’s Word.

Do. The whole reason for the think and speak parts of this guarantee is to impact our behavior. If we can act in accordance with what God has spoken, success is ours, guaranteed.

A point I should have made in the beginning is that success is defined as achieving what God has instructed us to achieve. It’s just like God to require something of us and then give us everything we need to meet it. That’s what He’s done here. He’s given us a very simple formula that guarantees our success. Then He’s given us His Word, His Son and His Spirit. He’s given us His guarantee. All that’s left is for us to follow the formula.

Do not let this book of the law depart from your mouth; but meditate on it day and night, that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. (Joshua 1:8)