“I am the LORD your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go. If only you had paid attention to My commandments! Then your well-being would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.” Isaiah 48:17-18.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
What you have your attention on is what you will draw into your life. You are paying attention to what you are allowing yourself to think on, on what you have allowed to dwell in your thought life. If your attention is on your problem, worry, fear, anxiety, your feelings about yourself or others, godless philosophies and life plans that shut Me out, or anything that is contrary to My Word then you will not have a good result. And that is always the case. It is only finding AND being attentive to My Word that will give you life, joy, peace, and health. And it is only then you can have a long satisfying life filled with good days.
He who gives attention to the Word will find good, and blessed is he who trusts in the LORD. Proverbs 16:20.
Watch your thoughts and be careful what you give your attention to, for as you think within yourself, so are you. Proverbs 23:7. Take care what you are listening to, for faith comes by hearing. Get your attention off the wrong things and onto the right things, and faith will follow. Sometimes you do not really have a faith problem but an attention problem.
Your faith is affected by what you have your attention fixed upon. If you are troubled by worry, fear, sickness, and any other negative, harassing emotion or addiction, put your attention in a better place. And I tell you over and over what that better place is, “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.” Proverbs 4:20-21. Your attention should not be focused on circumstances, worry, fear, the devil’s tactics, or to the reasonings of your mind. Don’t listen to the stranger’s voice, which is any voice that does not match up with My Words or shuts Me out even if it mimics My Word.
I know circumstances are real and surround you, Paul really was in a prison cell chained to the floor with no hope of escape, you may have been diagnosed with a disease which the world calls incurable, but no matter the circumstances they are temporal and can be changed by My Word for My Word is eternal and forever. The man born blind without eyes and the man at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple that had been crippled from birth appeared to be incurable to the worldly minded, but My Word changed both into healthy, happy, whole people functioning at the maximum potential that a person can operate at.
My Word can provide a way out where there appears in the natural to be no way, like the parting of the Red Sea and a path prepared below the sea upon which a whole nation and all their belongings was able to pass. But I told Moses to tell the people to stop screaming that I brought them out there to die and just be silent and keep their peace and go forward so I could fight for them.
He who guards his mouth and his tongue, guards his soul from troubles. Proverbs 21:23.
My Word can rearrange, change, and recreate into a new creation in Christ. I set up molecules for miracles, for, depending on their arrangement and how tightly or loosely they are packed together, they can be changed in form, and by adding atoms to combine with what is there, a new substance can even be formed. Like water into wine.
I promise you renewal of youth. Stop putting your attention on your aging flesh, stop talking about it and how you are failing, instead start rejoicing in My Word, stand up straight, and concentrate on a fruitful future. That is what Abraham finally did to have My promise of a son, he no longer considered his own elderly body or Sarah’s age or barrenness, but considered My Word of promise instead, being fully persuaded that I was able to perform My Word in his life. And then I could get My Word to work in him and Sarah, and it was only then, when they got their attention off the circumstances and on Me, that the promised child came to be. Before that they were trying to reason it out in their minds. But faith is not born in the mind but in the spirit, and then, by being fed with the input from the spirit the mind can follow at peace.
Be careful how you walk, that is, on what you are letting your mind dwell upon, for that will determine your walk. And if you want to walk in the Way I show you to go you must be in agreement with Me, which is thinking upon My Words, which are My thoughts, and not things that are contrary to My Word. For how can two walk together unless they agree? They cannot.
I the LORD your redeemer have told you, “I am the LORD your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go. If only you had paid attention to My commandments! Then your well-being would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.” Isaiah 48:17-18.
IF ONLY YOU HAD PAID ATTENTION to My Words, for all I tell you to do, think upon, or say is to teach you to profit and the way you should go. There are those who just straight out rebel against My Words and submit their lives to evil. But then there are those who do believe in Me but pay no attention to what I tell them to do to have a life filled with good things. And there can be a number of reasons they do this but My Son covers them in the parable about the sower and the different ground that receives My Word, the ground being the hearts of those who receive the Word.
There are hard, indifferent hearts that dismiss My Word as not valuable and remain ignorant of what I say because they have no interest in pursuing it. There are shallow hearts that rejoice in the magnificent promises but reject My Word the minute that any persecution or trial arises that seems to contradict My Word. There are hearts that receive My Word but they focus their attention not on My Word but on the cares of this world, such as worries, worldly prestige and riches, anxieties, hatred and the like that choke out My Word. And finally there are hearts that receive and pay attention to My Words, some valuing it less and applying it less than others and some more until you arrive at the good, open, and generous hearts that love My Word and are all in to the maximum, that is, from thirtyfold to sixtyfold to a hundredfold.
I sent My Word to heal you and deliver you, but no matter how much you give My Words lip service and say them over your life as a formula or charm to heal and deliver you, if your heart is far from Me it does nothing. If you will not give your attention to My Words and apply them to your life, and especially to your thoughts and words, they will not be able to penetrate your being to bring about the change you want.
If you are constantly talking about your problem, sickness, person who is causing you disquiet, or whatever is troubling your mind and then you recite some scripture promises, it is good that at least you know or have some scriptures because many do not even do that, but if you are not controlling your mind, tongue and actions you are blocking My Word from going to work to deliver you. Not because I do not want to perform My Word for you but because you are stopping My Word from getting through to you. You are not paying attention to your part. Which is simply to obey My whole Word, not just the promise but what I tell you to do that will facilitate the promise manifesting in your life.
And that is where the promise lies, “ If only you had paid attention to My commandments! Then your well-being would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.” Isaiah 48:18.
The reason My people were conquered by Babylon and taken captive into an enemy nation was summed up by Nehemiah in their exile,
“For our kings, our leaders, our priests and our fathers have not kept Your law or paid attention to Your commandments and Your testimonies with which You have witnessed to them. But they, in their own kingdom, with Your great goodness which You gave them, with the broad and rich land which You set before them, did not serve You or turn from their evil deeds.” Nehemiah 9:34-35.
They just did not pay attention to My Words and it did not result in a prosperous and strong nation. It resulted in evil. A corrupt nation falls easily into the hands of captors. Same with your life and your adversary the devil.
For the heart of this people has become dull, with their ears they scarcely hear, and they have closed their eyes, otherwise they would see with their eyes, hear with their ears, and understand with their heart and return, and I would heal them. Matthew 13:15.
Give attention to My Words and write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will have an anchor of hope that goes beyond the veil to anchor right at My throne of grace. And it will hold you stable in winds and storms so you do not drift off into the wrong flow.
As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness with regard to the scheming of deceit; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ. Ephesians 4:14-15.
If you put your attention on lies they can devastate your life and the lives of others. When I made David king of Israel and Judah, the house of Saul believed that David would come and kill them all, which was not the truth as he had never reached out to harm Saul or any of his family at any time, even when he could have struck him when Saul was pursuing David to kill David. Jonathan had died with Saul in the same battle against the Philistines and when the nurse in whose care he had left his five year old son heard that Saul and Jonathan had died she feared David would come to destroy the house of Saul so she grabbed Jonathan’s son up in her arms and fled. And it happened that in her hurry to flee, Jonathan’s son fell and became lame. His name was Mephibosheth. She fled in terror by putting her attention on a lie that never would have happened and worked havoc on another life. In fact, David, being in covenant with Jonathan, later searched for any descendant of Jonathan’s to show him favor.
And think of Elijah. He just had called down My fire from Heaven on Mt. Carmel and proved I alone was God to the people of Israel, had prayed and released the rain that had not fallen for three and half years, and outran Ahab’s speeding chariot. And even before that, he had evaded Ahab’s attempts to harm him for the whole time of the famine, even calling down fire that consumed the envoys sent to arrest him. But then Jezebel sent a message to him that she would be sure he was dead by that time the next day and it got all his attention and he went into panic and fled, just when he had started a great revival in Israel, having brought the people to confessing I alone was God. He got his attention off Me and My power and protection and put it on the threat that set him into a panic. I never did let Jezebel kill him, rather she died as he had prophesied, but it took Elijah off track when he had been going so strong. Her threat derailed him because he let it have all his attention so that it became bigger than Me in his eyes. And this opened him to the spirit of fear and made him decide to give up and die. But I encouraged him and set him back on his feet and sent him off to complete a new assignment.
If I should say, “My foot has slipped,” Your lovingkindness, O LORD, will hold me up. When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, Your consolations delight my soul. Psalm 94:18-19.
Keep your attention on the right thing and you will not go wrong. There was a Shunammite woman who made a room for Elisha to stay at her home when he traveled that way and treated him with honor because he was My prophet. He gave her the word from Me that she would have a son, which she had been longing for. And she had that son. But then when he was just a young child, he stayed out to long in the fields with his father in the hot sun, the father brought him in to her and the boy died in her lap. She kept her attention on one thing, I had told her she would have a son and that was the truth for her. She put the boy in Elisha’s room and had the donkey saddled and off she went. She told her husband all was well (shalom). She went and got the prophet Elisha who had given her My Word and with utmost confidence she told him to go get the boy up. She refused the fear and kept her eye on the promise. She would not take anything less than his life back. And I raised the boy.
And in the same way a man named Jairus had a very sick little daughter. He took his attention off the sickness and put his attention on Jesus, but as Jesus was coming to heal her, she died. But Jesus told him not to pay attention to that report and not to fear, just to believe in her restoration to life and health. And Jairus paid attention to the Word of Jesus and obeyed and the girl was raised back up to life.
“If only you had paid attention to My commandments! Then your well-being would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.”
And what are My commandments?
This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us. 1 John 3:23.
That you believe in the Name of Jesus, by which you heal the sick and cast out demos, and love one another as He loved you. He came to serve you.
If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them. John 13:17.
I tell you not to worry, to cast all your care on Me, to rejoice always in Me, pray without ceasing, and give constant thanks. I tell you not to gossip or talk with malicious, rude, or obscene words. I tell you not to let the sun go down on your anger. I tell you to use your words to edify, exhort, and encourage—to give grace to those who hear you. I tell you to be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger. I tell you to have faith in Me, speak to mountains in your life to move, and to pray with confidence and thanksgiving, believing what you asked for is already yours. I tell you to forgive others just like I forgave you.
Love. That fulfills the Law. Love is patient, kind, and does not get offended. But love pursues the salvation of all and makes every attempt to pull people back from evil into My marvelous light.
I love you. Remember where you put your attention is very important because your attention is like a vacuum cleaner, it picks up whatever comes in its path and draws it in. And you know when it picks up something inappropriate for a vacuum cleaner, such as a paperclip or stone, it will rattle and make clanging sounds. You do not want the motor destroyed so you stop the vacuum immediately and shake the object out. It is like that with your thoughts, you will know when you put your attention in the wrong place, for the thought that comes in will make plenty of clamor (worry, fear, doubt, anger, offense, etc.) that unless you put it out it can destroy your motor. So stop the motor of your mind, as you would a vacuum, and shake that thought out before it does further damage to your life and peace.