Hang on to These!

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Transcript

Welcome And A Butter Confession

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Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in the Word. I'm Ronnie Cooksie. I love butter. I was so delighted when I became an adult, and I found the studies that show that butter is actually good for you, good for your health, good for your heart. And you know how we do. I found those studies, and those are the ones I'm sticking with because I like it. In fact, food is just an excuse to eat butter.

Proverbs On Life And Health

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Well, let's look at something else that the scripture says is good for us and good for our health. In Proverbs chapter four, verses twenty through twenty-two, the king is instructing his son, and God is simultaneously instructing us. It says, My son, give attention to my words, incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your sight, keep them in the midst of your heart. For they are life to those who find them, and health to all their body. Wow, what a great text here. He says you need to take action to do something, to keep something, to treasure something. What is that? His words. And in our case, this is

Practical Ways To Take In Scripture

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the word of God. He says to give attention. It means to lean into. The literal meaning is to bend your ear. And he says, you're going to have to take action to make sure the words of God are in your heart. Do not let them, those words of God, do not let them depart from your sight. Keep them in the midst of your heart. Well, what does that look like? I mean, how can you keep them in your sight constantly? You're going to wreck your car, you're going to trip and stumble. Well, it begins, of course, with that daily study of God's Word. You've got to make a commitment to be reading His Word. It's got to become a non-negotiable to you. If you don't read well, you can listen to it. These days there are so many ways, so many apps to be able to put the Word of God into our heart. So you've got to be reading it every day to begin to wash your mind, your thinking, so that you think more like God and less like your flesh or the world. Even memorizing his word is one of the ways that we can keep it in our sight. Now most of us adults don't feel like we're good memorizers. We can. The muscle's gotten a little weak, but we can grow that muscle. And so don't set your goals so high that you give up. Just a little bit. Sporadic is okay. And so we want to be able to do anything we can. I like lately to do scripture writing sometimes and to just take a short passage and to write it. And something about writing that, but besides doing something analog for a change, is good to put it into my head. We want to keep it, retain it, store it up, treasure it in the midst of our heart. And so when you read it,

Meditation That Fills The Mind

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looking for the meaning that God is trying to show you for that day, to ruminate on it. You can even meditate on it. Now that's a scary word for us sometimes because it makes us think of Eastern meditation, and no Eastern meditation is trying to empty your mind. That's not what we're trying to do. We're trying to fill our mind with the scripture. You can take some of God's word and just think slowly on it, one word at a time, like a cow that would chew its cut and to ruminate on it. Oftentimes at bedtime, my wife or I will remind the other, don't forget to meditate, we'll say. And what does that mean? It means that just as you're going to sleep, to just think slowly, word by word, on one piece, one short verse of God's word. Scientists tell us that the last thing we think about before we fall asleep goes deep down into our subconscious. That's why the scripture talks about the word of God being sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing as deep as the soul and the spirit and bone and marrow. And so we get the word of God down in our subconscious. And so that's that place that causes our dreams and the things that are thought through and worked through in the computer of our mind and our heart as we sleep. So great, great way to do that. And he said these precious words are life to those who find them and health to all their whole

Spiritual And Physical Fruit

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body. Well, they are spiritual life, first and foremost. It's the word of God where we learn that we're a sinner and we need to place our faith in Christ in order to be right with God. But even beyond that, the word of God will transform us. It will change the way that we think and then the way that we act, and it will give even physical health as we make our decisions more and more according to God's Word. We spend so much money on supplements and exercise, and that's not wrong, but we want to give the same kind of attention to God and His Word. In Proverbs 3, the previous chapter, it says this in verse 8, that God's word will be healing to our body and refreshment to our bones. One version there for healing to your body says healing to your navel. How's your belly button looking? Is it healthy? Well, let's commit to get more and more of God's word into our hearts and minds and into our lives so that we can glorify Him and walk closely with the God who's given us the owner's manual of life, the love letter of the

Make God’s Word A Priority

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Bible. Don't let it depart from your sight. Make it a priority in your life today. God bless you. If this is helpful, pass it on to a friend. I'll see you next time.