Do you meditate on God’s word?

Charles Sheldon published In His Steps: What Would Jesus Do? in 1896, and there have been more than fifty million copies purchased since that time. The book is one of the best-selling books of all time. It’s a Christian classic that illustrates the truth of Psalm 119:15.

How would our lives change if we applied the precepts of Scripture and the “ways” Jesus taught his followers to live to our own lives? In His Steps is about a church that decides to ask themselves, “What would Jesus do?” and how that one choice changed their lives and their town as a result.

In the Bible, a “precept” means a commandment or an instruction. The psalmist told the Lord, “I will meditate on your precepts.” It’s so important to read God’s word as the pure truth it is. It’s equally important to think about God’s word until it becomes the truth we live.

What choice did the word of God cause you to make today? How did God’s laws and Christ’s teaching alter a decision you were making? That is the result of meditating on the word of God. The words become knowledge, the knowledge becomes wisdom, and then wisdom governs our lives.

The psalmist says to “consider” the ways of God. In the thousands of thoughts we have each day, how many of those thoughts are dedicated to thinking about Sheldon’s important question: “What would Jesus do?”

When we “allow the word of Christ to dwell in us richly,” we allow the example of Christ to be formed in our thoughts. If the most important influence we have is the example of Christ, then we will walk “in his steps.”

Every day is an opportunity to “dwell” with the word of Christ and do those things that Jesus would do. Christians are the hands and feet of Christ in our world. We should meditate on his word so we can walk in his ways.