Unmerited Favor (18 page)

We need to read this portion of scripture in view of Jesus’ finished work. That is why it was essential for me to spend the last couple of chapters establishing you firmly on the rock-solid foundation of the new covenant of grace. Now that you know that we are no longer under the law, what is the new covenant way to be blessed and to experience good success? Joshua only had the law to meditate upon because the New Testament had not been written yet. For us, the secret to good success is found in meditating on God’s Word in the light of the
new covenant of grace
.

The secret to good success is found in meditating on God’s Word in the light of the new covenant of grace.

Before we can go into what it means to meditate on God’s Word, what exactly does it mean to “meditate”?

When the Bible talks about meditation, it’s not referring to a mental exercise. The Hebrew word for meditation in the Old Testament is the word
hagah
, which means to utter or mutter.
¹¹
So to
hagah
is to speak under your breath. Notice that the Lord told Joshua, “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your
mouth
...” He did not say that it “shall not depart from your mind.” The key to meditating on God’s Word is not mental contemplation. It is in speaking God’s promises with your mouth!

“Pastor Prince, does this mean that I should keep repeating God’s Word? For instance, should I keep saying ‘by His stripes I am healed’ when I need healing?”

Meditating on God’s Word does not mean making vain repetitions of scriptures. Meditating on the Word is much more and is something that first occurs deep in your heart. The psalmist David captured the essence of meditation most aptly when he said, “My heart was hot within me; while I was musing, the fire burned. Then I spoke with my tongue...”
¹²
As you are meditating on God’s Word, ask the Holy Spirit to give you a fresh revelation of Jesus. Let that scripture burn with revelation in your heart. And as you speak out of that burning revelation, God anoints the words that you speak. When you declare, “By His stripes I am healed,” and that declaration is uttered with a sense of revelation and faith in Jesus, there will be power in your declaration.

Meditate On Jesus, The Word Made Flesh, And Experience Good Success

Under the new covenant, we get to meditate on the
person of Jesus
when we meditate on the Word. Jesus is the Word made flesh, and as you meditate on His love for you, on His finished work, on His forgiveness and on His grace, God guarantees that you will have good success.

You can just take one verse and meditate on Jesus’ love for you. For example, you can begin to mutter Psalm 23:1 under your breath: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” As you meditate on this simple verse, you begin to realize that the Lord
is
(present tense) your shepherd. A shepherd provides for his sheep, feeds them and protects them. Because Jesus is your shepherd, you shall not be in want for anything. You shall not lack wisdom, direction, provision—anything. You begin to see that Jesus is present with you, providing for you, watching out for you, and making sure that you and your family will have more than enough. Now, right at that moment, in that short period of meditating on Jesus, faith is imparted and your heart is encouraged with the reality that Jesus
is
with you, even when you are facing some challenges.

Whether you are a homemaker, salesperson or business owner, your soul will be nourished and strengthened when you meditate on Jesus. In fact, every time you meditate on God’s Word, Jesus will propel you into success without you even realizing it! Without you having to scheme, devise or make all sorts of plans, Jesus will direct your steps, lead you to the place that you are supposed to be and cause doors of opportunity to supernaturally open wide for you. When you meditate on Jesus, your ways always become prosperous. Now, don’t be afraid to use the word “prosperous.” It’s God’s promise in the Bible. When you meditate (mutter) on Jesus day and night, the Bible says that “you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success”!

Some people think that they are prosperous once they have made their first million. But when you examine their lives, you find that somewhere along the way in their struggle to make more and more money, they have lost the very things that are really important. They may have built up an impressive investment portfolio, but their children want nothing to do with them anymore and they have hurt the people who once loved them. That is not true prosperity or good success.

When God blesses you with prosperity, financial blessings are included, but only as a small part of the whole. Good success from Jesus will never take you away from your church. It will never take you away from your loved ones. Most of all, it will never take you away from yourself. You will not wake up one day in the midst of your pursuit of success and find that you no longer know the person looking back at you in the mirror.

My friend, learn to meditate on the person of Jesus.
He
is your good success. When you have Him, you have everything. The Bible tells us that “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”
¹³
The word for “God” here in the original Greek text is
Christos,
¹⁴
referring to Christ. In other words, faith comes by hearing and hearing the Word of
Christ
.

Jesus is your good success. When you have Him, you have everything.

Faith does not come just by hearing the Word of God. Faith comes by hearing the Word of
Jesus
and His finished work. In the same way, meditating on God’s Word is about meditating, muttering and hearing about Jesus. This does not mean that you read only the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. No, every page of the entire Bible from cover to cover points to the person of Jesus!

If you desire to experience good success in your life, then I encourage you to meditate on messages preached by ministries that are all about exalting the person of Jesus, His beauty, His unmerited favor and His perfect work for you on the cross. Listen to new covenant ministries that do not mix law and grace, but which rightly divide the Word of God and preach the unadulterated gospel of Jesus. The more you hear of Jesus and the cross, the more faith will be imparted to you and you will experience good success in your life!

Chapter 15: The Blessed Man Versus The Cursed Man

When learning anything, there are always foundations that need to be established before you can continue further. In Mathematics, you must learn addition before you can move on to learning multiplication. In learning the English language, you must first be established in recognizing letters in the alphabet before you can move on to the basics of spelling, sentence structure and punctuation.

Similarly, if you want to delve deeper into God’s Word, you must first be established in the truth that you are now under the new covenant of grace. Every revelation in God’s Word is built upon the revelation of Jesus Christ and His finished work. My desire is that as you continue to walk through the pages of this book with me, you will come to a place of maturity in your understanding of the new covenant of grace.

The Book of Hebrews tells us that “everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the
word of righteousness
, for he is a babe.”
¹
This means that if you are established in your righteousness (the word of righteousness) through Christ, you are no longer a spiritual baby. Once you have the revelation that your righteousness is not dependent on your own right
doing
, but on your right
believing
in Jesus, you have matured and become skillful in the word of righteousness.

You see, it does not take the Holy Spirit to understand the law. If you were to walk down any street and interview passersby to find out how a person can get to heaven, most of them will probably tell you that you can get to heaven if you behaved well and did good deeds. This emphasis on one’s own behavior, efforts and merits is actually
works
based on the system of the law.

In fact, the belief systems of man are based on the system of the law. Simply put, if you do good, you get good. If you do bad, you get beat! The world has no problems understanding concepts like retribution and judgment under the system of the law. You may have seen the sitcom
My Name Is Earl.
Well, the people of the world are generally like Earl. When Earl does something good, he expects something good to happen to him. Conversely, when he does something bad, he expects some form of punishment.

Jesus did everything on our behalf and He qualified us for  heaven and for every blessing of good success!

But you know what? You and I have something that the world
cannot
understand, and it is called grace (unmerited favor)! We did not do anything—Jesus did everything on our behalf and He qualified us for heaven and for every blessing of good success! Even when we fail, we can have a confident expectation of good instead of a fearful expectation of punishment. This is not because we have stored up enough merits or good deeds. It is purely because the blood of Jesus has washed us whiter than snow. What we have as new covenant believers is so good that we need the Holy Spirit to be able to understand the exceeding richness of Jesus’ unmerited favor toward us.

Cursed Is The Man Who Trusts In Man

I want to show you the difference between a blessed man and a cursed man. The Bible is amazingly clear on how you can be a cursed man. But just in case you are interested, I thought I should mention that the Bible also shows you how you can be a blessed man. Are you interested to learn more about this? Turn with me to Jeremiah 17:5–8:

...“Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the Lord. For he shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land which is not inhabited. Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; but its leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit.

—Jeremiah 17:5–8

Let’s start with how one can become a cursed man. From verse five, we see that when a man “trusts in man” and not in the Lord, he becomes a cursed man. To trust in man also refers to someone putting confidence in his own good works and efforts, claiming to be “self-made,” choosing to depend on himself and rejecting God’s unmerited favor.

A man who “makes flesh his strength” is also cursed. When you see the word “flesh” in your Bible, it does not always refer to your physical body. You have to look at the context of the verse. In this context, “flesh” can be paraphrased as “self-effort.” In other words, we can read verse five as “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes
self-effort
his strength.”

Don’t use all your health to chase after wealth, only to spend all your wealth later to get back your health!

My friend, there are essentially two ways to live this life. The first is for us to depend and trust entirely in the Lord’s unmerited favor, while the other is to depend on our efforts, and strive and struggle for success. We can never bring about good success that comes from God by depending on our self-efforts. No matter how we strive and struggle, we cannot work for our own righteousness or attain our own forgiveness. Any success that we may achieve is only partial success.

On the other hand, God’s kind of success is complete, whole and permeates into every facet of our lives—spirit, soul and body. God’s Word says, “The blessing of the Lord makes one rich, and He adds no sorrow with it.”
²
God never gives us success at the expense of our marriage, families or health. Like I always say to the business people in my church, don’t use all your health to chase after wealth, only to spend all your wealth later to get back your health! Which is a prosperous man? A man who has a fat bank account but is flat on his back with sickness, or one who may not have much in his bank account but is enjoying divine health?

Look around you. It is clear that true prosperity and good success cannot be measured in terms of how much money we have in our bank accounts. With the unmerited favor of God, the man who may not have much at this point in his life
will
experience good success.

Health and wholeness in your physical body are part of God’s blessings. If you are constantly under tremendous stress and have regular panic attacks because of the nature of your work, then I would encourage you to take a step back and seek the Lord’s counsel. Stress robs you of health, whereas good success from the Lord causes your youth to be renewed.

When you depend on your efforts, you can struggle for many years and get a certain measure of success. But God’s ways are higher. With just one moment of His favor, you can experience accelerated blessings and promotion that years of striving and struggling can never achieve.

Look at Joseph’s life. He was nothing but a lowly prisoner. Yet, within an hour of meeting Pharaoh, he was promoted to the highest office in the entire Egyptian empire. Beloved, even if you are down and out (like Joseph was) at this point in your life, the Lord can promote you supernaturally in an instant when you choose to put your eyes on Him!

Let’s continue reading the passage in Jeremiah 17, which goes on to describe the cursed man: “For he shall be like a shrub in the desert, and
shall not see when good comes
.” Now, this is amazing! Let me ask you a question. According to this passage, does good come along the way of the cursed man? Yes, it does! But the sad reality is that he cannot see it.

As a pastor, I have seen, down through the years, people who don’t put their trust in the Lord when it comes to their marriages, finances and other areas of weaknesses. They are determined to trust in their own efforts, and tend to be rather arrogant and frustrated with the people around them. Many a time, when you observe people like that, you realize that they cannot see the good things that are right under their noses. They don’t appreciate their spouses, neglect their children and even when other blessings come their way,
they miss them
!

People living under grace can truly enjoy the blessings around them because they know that these blessings are undeserved.

Why is it that they can’t see good when it comes? It is because people who trust in their own efforts have
no ability
to see and receive blessings from the Lord. They only believe in the “good” that can come from their own efforts. That is why they are proud. You would probably notice that such people don’t say “thank you” very often to the people around them. They feel like they are entitled to and deserve whatever they receive. They are rarely grateful or appreciative, and that is why they take their spouses for granted instead of seeing them as a blessing from the Lord.

In contrast, people who are living under grace and who trust in the Lord’s unmerited favor are constantly thankful, praising God and giving thanks to Jesus. They are grateful and appreciative of the people around them.

When I was still a bachelor, I had an idea of the kind of wife I wanted and brought my request to the Lord. But you know what? He over-answered my prayer and gave me Wendy! I am truly grateful to the Lord for Wendy and I know that it is the unmerited favor of Jesus. When I look at my daughter Jessica, I know that I don’t deserve such a beautiful daughter, and yet the Lord gave this precious girl to me. You see my friend, I did nothing to deserve it, but the Lord blessed me with an amazing family. People living under grace can truly enjoy the blessings around them because they know that these blessings are undeserved.

A Picture Of The Blessed Man

Let’s look at some of the pictures that the Bible paints for us in Jeremiah 17. God’s Word is amazing. He speaks to us through word pictures and imagery in the Bible. It says that the cursed man “shall be like a shrub in the desert.” What a dismal image of a man! A person who is always trusting in himself is like a dried-up shrub, looking old, tired and haggard.

But thank God the Bible didn’t just stop with the description of the cursed man. It goes on to paint a beautiful picture of a blessed man. Jeremiah 17:7–8 tells us: “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; but its leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit.” Wow! I know which man I would rather be. Truly, a picture is worth more than a thousand words! I want you to see yourself as this tree planted by the waters today!

When I was on vacation with Wendy in the breathtaking Canadian Rockies, we spent a lot of time just roaming around and soaking in the splendor of our heavenly Father’s creation. As we wandered along the bank of a tranquil river that we chanced upon, we found a majestic tree anchored by the water’s edge. Its trunk was sturdy and strong, and its branches stretched out to form a perfect canopy above it. In contrast to the other trees that were further away from the river, its leaves were refreshingly green and luscious. This was because the tree was constantly nourished by the river.

Looking at that impressive, beautiful tree, I couldn’t help but recall the blessed man described in Jeremiah 17, and I remember saying to myself then, “I am like this tree in Jesus’ name!” When you depend on and trust in the Lord, you are like this tree too. Jesus will cause you to be a picture of robust strength, vitality and good success. See yourself like a beautiful tree planted by the waters. God’s Word says that even when heat comes, you will not fear it!

Did you notice a crucial difference between the blessed man and the cursed man? While the cursed man cannot see good when it comes, the blessed man will not fear even when heat comes! The King James Version says that the blessed man “shall
not see
when heat cometh.” This is amazing. It means that heat comes even to the blessed man, but he is not conscious of seasons of heat, but continues to be strong and to flourish. He will be like a tree whose leaf continues to be green. When you are like the blessed man, you will be evergreen! This means that you will enjoy divine health, youthfulness, vibrancy and dynamism.

The blessed man is not conscious of seasons of heat, but continues to be strong and to flourish.

When you are blessed, your body will be full of life as the Lord renews your youth and vigor. Your health will not fail you, nor will you lose your youth. There will be no stress, fear and panic attacks because the blessed man “will not be anxious in the year of drought.” A year of drought speaks of a severe famine, and in our modern vernacular, it would be no different from the global financial meltdown, the subprime crisis, the collapse of global investment banks, the volatile stock markets and rising inflation. While it may be bad news for the world, the blessed man can remain at rest and not be anxious because God has promised that even in the midst of a crisis, he will not “cease from yielding fruit.” How will this happen? It will happen because he puts his trust in the Lord!