Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6.
Receive the implanted Word, it has the power to save your soul. James 1:21.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God says:
Input comes before output.
My Son’s first parable was about this. Where the seed planted and grew there was harvest, where it did not plant and grow there was none. And the more that was planted and grown, the bigger the harvest. Sow sparingly, you reap sparingly, sow bountifully, you reap bountifully. And the amount of and type of output is determined by what is input.
Receive the implanted Word, it has the power to save your soul. James 1:21. The power is in the seed of My Word, the container of My Word, but it is up to you how much you will permit into your heart. Take care what you listen to. The measure with which you measure it will be measured to you; and more will be given you besides. For whoever has, to him more will be given; and whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. Mark 4:24-25. No input, no output. Less input, less output.
My Words are life to those who find them and health to all their flesh. Proverbs 4:22. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth and making it produce and sprout, and providing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so will My word be which goes out of My mouth. It will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the purpose for which I sent it. Isaiah 55:10-11. The power is there to produce the promise in My Word but like any system of production, there must be an input to have any output.
Let Me show you an example. The Israelites who I redeemed out of the slavery of Egypt did not know Me or My Word very well. They had remained identified with Me but they were very much ingrained into the unbelieving, idol worshipping culture of the Egyptians and had allowed the culture of unbelief to be a good part of their input over the years. But I changed all that when I took them to Myself in the wilderness. There they heard My voice when they would listen and Moses wrote My Words down for them. He then told them to teach them day and night to their children, in other words to input My Word into their children as the only Word they heard. That was My covenant with them—My Spirit upon them, and My words which I input in their mouths which they were not to let depart from their mouths, nor from the mouth of their offspring, nor from the mouth of their offspring’s offspring from now and forever. Isaiah 59:21.
Moses told the Israelites in the wilderness when they had come out of Egypt, “Hear, Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. And you shall repeat them diligently to your sons and speak of them when you sit in your house, when you walk on the road, when you lie down, and when you get up. You shall also tie them as a sign to your hand, and they shall be as frontlets on your forehead. You shall also write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” Deuteronomy 6:4-9. No multiple gods, no confusion, no various inputs, just one connection of continuous feed to them and their children—My Word. And it would make them strong and filled with life to be more than conquerors. Moses told them if they would keep and obey My Word the result, that is, the output, would be “your days and the days of your sons will be increased on the land which the LORD swore to your fathers to give them, as days of heaven on the earth. For if you are careful to keep all of this commandment which I am commanding you to do, to love the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and cling to Him, then the Lord will dispossess all these nations from you, and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier than you. Every place on which the sole of your foot steps shall be yours; your border will be from the wilderness to Lebanon, and from the river, the river Euphrates, as far as the western sea. No one will be able to stand against you; the Lord your God will instill the dread of you and the fear of you in all the land on which you set foot, just as He has spoken to you.” Deuteronomy 11:21-25.
I told the same to Joshua, to be careful what he input to have a successful output. “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” Joshua 1:8. And Joshua took this to heart and made sure that he instilled it in the generation he led into the Promised Land to conquer. And conquer they did.
The older generation never took the input of My Word to heart. They grumbled and complained against My Word and kept looking back to Egypt and the idols there. They had grown up on a different input and they never flushed it out by being cleaned up by My Word. But their children were raised only on the input of My Word. And you see it made a tremendous difference.
And as long as Joshua and those who knew him well lived and kept the Word before the people’s eyes, Israel served Me and never departed from My Word, Joshua 24:31; Judges 2:7, but when Joshua died at the age of 110 and all of that generation also were gathered to their fathers; and another generation rose up after them, they stopped reading and inputting My Word into their children and they did not know Me, nor even the work which I had done for Israel. Judges 2:8-13. They then began to do evil in My sight and to worship the Baals of the other nations. Yes, they abandoned Me, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and they followed other gods from the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them; they served Baal and the Ashtaroth. Judges 2:12-13. No input of the Word, no good output, only evil. And there followed many years where everyone did what was right in his own eyes. Judges 21:25. When there is no Word there are no guidelines for moral behavior. You see it now in the world. They took My Word away from the children and a generation has grown up that wanders in the confusion of immorality, murder of infants in abortion, pornography, and perversion of the family. They need a Moses. They need a Joshua. They need a Hannah.
Do you know who brought Israel back to My Word after the years when Joshua and all who knew him were dead and the input of My Word died out among them? A woman named Hannah called on Me as the LORD of Hosts and prayed for a baby that she would consecrate to My service if I answered her prayer. 1 Samuel 1:11. I did. And her baby, Samuel, whom she did put in My house and in My service came to know My Word. For I revealed Myself to Samuel by My Word in the Tabernacle of Moses set up in Shiloh and he brought My Word back to the people. And none of his words failed or fell to the ground. 1 Samuel 3:19-21.
It makes a huge difference whether you are raised on My Word or not. Look around you and you will see the devastation of a generation that should have been far more advanced by now in knowing My ways and doing My works than prior generations. But you see hoards of wandering, confused, selfish, drug consuming, homeless, or, if not homeless and even wealthy, useless lives of self-serving. They are lovers of violent video games and idle pursuits, condoning abortion, gay lifestyle, and no moral code to stop living with partners you are not married to and have no covenant. People who blaspheme and insult Me to My face. Scientists and people of education, who should know Me, instead scornfully saying I do not exist. And all because they don’t know Me because they never had My Word input into them so it could grow and yield the goodness, power, and presence into their lives and the lives of their children and their children’s children. They have never known My glory as Moses and the new generation of the Israelites experienced coming out of Egypt and for forty years in the wilderness. They are like sheep without a shepherd. And until you find your great good Shepherd you will keep wandering in the dark valley of the shadow of death with your prince of darkness who is intent on leading you astray by stealing My Word before it can plant in a heart and produce the goodness that life was meant to obtain.
Will you change things? At least in your house? Joshua still challenges you, “Now, therefore, revere the Lord and serve Him in sincerity and truth; and do away with the gods which your fathers served beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. But if it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served, which were beyond the Euphrates River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” The people answered and said, “Far be it from us that we would abandon the Lord to serve other gods; for the Lord our God is He who brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt, from the house of slaves, and did these great signs in our sight and watched over us through all the way in which we went and among all the peoples through whose midst we passed. The Lord drove out from before us all the peoples, even the Amorites who lived in the land. We also will serve the Lord, for He is our God.” Joshua 24:14-18.
Remember why I chose Abraham? I tell you why, “For I have chosen him, so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him.” Genesis 18:19.
I love you. My Words are Spirit and life. They are Words of everlasting life. And they will change your life. So preach the Word; be ready in season and out of season; correct, rebuke, and exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come, and is here, when they will not tolerate sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires, and they will turn their ears away from the truth and will turn aside to myths. But as for you, use self-restraint in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. 2 Timothy 4:2-5. And make sure, like Joshua, you are inputting it into your heart every day and every night if you want good success.
And another point, before you make any decisions in your life, get My input on it. Pray before you act. Get input before you expend the time in output. There is a way that seems right in the eyes of a man but ends in death. Always get My input before you do any output.