A good day only by a good night

 Can you have a good day without having a good night? I doubt it. From my limited experience, a good day follows a good night, and a bad day follows a bad night. A good day doesn’t follow a bad night.

“As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come.” (Prov. 26:2).

“I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.” (Rom. 7:25).  We can operate our Christian life by the Bible or we can fly by the seat of our pants. We might think we can shoot from the hip like some Hollywood western star, but the reality is that you miss the mark every time. Only in Hollywood movie sets do you hit the target. Jesus was the only one who could live the life of obedience by shooting from the hip and flying by the seat of his pants—and He never tried it!

He lived by every word of God. So our sanctification, our success in the Christian life depends on God’s access to our hearts and minds when we choose to come to His word and to appropriate that word to ourselves. John 16:33 makes no sense and brings us no peace without the principle that every word of God is for us. “These things I have spoken unto you, that in Me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” (Jn. 16:33).

“Every word of God is pure: He is a shield unto them that put their trust in Him.” (Prov. 30:5).

“Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of Thy righteous judgments endureth for ever.” (Ps. 119:160).

“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” (2Tim. 3:16).

“Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.” (1Cor. 10:11).

“For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.” (Rom. 15:4).

“Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever.” (Isa. 30:8).

We must immerse ourselves in Gods’ word; we must consciously introduce it to our memory banks. Then it will seep into our conscience through the Spirit of God like leaven makes its way throughout the whole loaf of dough. Our brain is constantly busy with soaking up observations through our senses. And it works on that data, coming to conclusions. We see a billboard advertising whiskey, and the picture stored in our brain begins to ruminate on the pros and cons of that and eventually to decide for or against it, which determines our loyalty for God or for Satan. Upon our final conclusion, then that decision belongs to part of the frontal lobe, the conscience—for good or for bad.

We hear music, and the same process happens. We smell something we shouldn’t eat, same process. We see mighty cities of concrete skyscrapers, and the sight naturally leads to the conclusion that this life is all that there is and will ever be. This is how Satan has designed this world. Subtly, ever so subtly, the messages are being preached to the human race to abandon the eternal laws of God and to live for this world. And his subliminal messages are wildly successful.

Only in the word of God can we be saved from this pervasive menace to God’s kingdom. This is why Jesus immersed Himself in the scriptures. Faith cometh by the word of God (Rom. 10:17), and that is practically the only place faith comes from. Nature can still provide for faith and Jesus uses nature as a resource to declare His character, as well, the experiences in life and from manual labor. But, primarily faith is born out of the word of God. 1Pet. 1:23. With patience. Lk. 8:15.

Therefore, if we do not marinate our brains with the Bible, our minds automatically become marinated by Satan’s craftiness in the world around us, the cares of this world, deceitfulness of riches. We all have a Hal9000, the conscious 10% of brain, but the subconscious 100% of brain, our radar system, intuition, 6th sense.

You want peace and rest; it will only come by consciously planting the seeds of scriptures into your mind, by reading it, meditating on it, putting it into practice (experiencing it). Psalm 1:1-3 show the secret of David’s successes which he didn’t keep secret. Why did it remain a secret to Israel throughout the Old Testament? They didn’t believe it would work for them (Heb. 4:7;3:19), or their pride didn’t like the light, the doctrine, the reproof, the correction, the instruction. So they didn’t come to the light (Jn. 3:20).

But the very small remnant who did receive it (vs. 21) were spared the captivity of Satan. They were lights to the world and the salt of the earth, and they saw God using them to be a blessing, the promise to Abraham and to his seed realized. They found the strait gate which few find, and peace and rest.