Don't Neglect the Infrastructure

Matthew 4:4

As I was pondering this verse, I almost breezed right past this little phrase. “It is written.” Then I began to wonder how often Jesus actually says this. Well, more than wonder, I counted – These 3 words (actually only one Greek word – grapho) are/is recorded 17 times from the mouth of Jesus, and a few more between the devil, (who throws it back a Jesus in the wilderness,) and the collective narrators.

This fascinates me. Jesus, The Word of God made flesh, spends a lot of time talking about the written record of the word. Later in the verse He is going to talk about the verbal communication of God – that which proceeds out of His mouth, but in order to create a context in which to receive the “rhema” or spoken word of God we must have the foundation, or infrastructure of the written word.

Think of a building before they put the walls up. When builders are working on new construction, they first set the foundation, then they create an infrastructure. This includes all the beams and wiring and plumbing. It is actually what holds everything in place. Then they put up the sheetrock and finally we get to paint, paper, furnishings etc.

We will talk in the next blog about the daily bread of the spoken word of God, but today I want to take a few minutes to stress the importance of daily meditation on what is written. Here are 12 things you can do every day to create a biblical infrastructure. [Tweet This]

Read the word
Think about the word
Meditate on the word
Memorize the word
Read the word
Mull over the word
Ponder the word
Read the word
Repeat the word
Sing the word
Pray the word
Read the word

The Bible tells us that Jesus grew in wisdom. I do not believe that He came out of the virgin’s womb with a complete working knowledge of what was written. He did all of the above all His life. And when He was faced with temptation by the devil himself, He went right to that infrastructure that his life was built on. The light goes on when the wires are in place and plugged in properly.

Time and time again the scripture I have been meditating has been exactly what was needed in the situation. For example I spent about 2 years where most of my study and meditation time was spent on the Song of Songs. You might think that would lead to a great imbalance, but I found that every situation I faced, God was able to pull from that well great wisdom. The same thing happened a few years back when I was working my way through the Minor Prophets for a year. It always amazes me how multi-faceted the word is, and what a genius the Holy Spirit is in His ability to apply the word to situations.

Do you have any times you can share when God used a verse you were meditating on when you least expected it?

Thanks for reading today

Ben