The Law of Success

BY Dr. Sunny Obazu-Ojeagbase

“This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe 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 NKJV

The law of success is one of the most popular topics that authors love to write about. I have read quite a few books devoted to these laws. And as a bookseller, I have sold more than a dozen titles in this genre that are regarded as “classics” and “perennial bestsellers.” I even recommended many more, including one that I wrote, “How The Seven Laws of Success Changed The Entire Course Of My Life”.

But none of these titles, as good as many of them are, are as profound, dependable and timeless as the Word of GOD found in the Scripture that I quoted above.

GOD handed the law to Joshua. He had just given the responsibility of leading the children of Israel to the land He promised their forefathers for inheritance. Joshua assumed leadership when Moses died. GOD, who knew the enormous demand that leading His children would impose on anyone saddled with that responsibility, had to show Joshua what he must do to make a huge success of his new assignment.

So He took Joshua aside and lectured him. To avoid discouragement or total failure, He told him: “Only be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:7 NKJV).

This is leadership Lesson 101. And I’m sure it will do you a world of good too if you take time to read the entire chapter one of the Book of Joshua to learn this enduring lesson.

Without any doubt, Joshua made a roaring success of the assignment. He led the children of Israel across river Jordan, sent the wall of Jericho crashing miraculously and won many marvelous victories over the previous occupants of the land that GOD willed to His children. And he achieved all of this by simply obeying GOD’s instructions and following His guidance to the letter.

“Brother Sunny,” you ask, “Would following this instruction work the same way for me?”

Yes it will. If you do exactly what Joshua did, recognizing that there is a GOD in Heaven who is interested in the affairs of men, and you seek Him with all your heart and obey and worship Him, then I guarantee that you will enjoy this level of success that you can only dream about now. Let us look at the content of this instruction in Joshua 1:8.

“This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth…”

Exactly what does this mean? The book GOD is referring to are His Words that have been compiled into what you and I know as the Bible. In that book, there are instructions of what to do and what not to do. Once we discover what we are to do and what we should not do, that is to become our new language, so to say.

For example, Job 36:11 has this instruction: “If they obey and serve Him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures.”

To act according to GOD’s instruction here, you should incorporate this Word into your vocabulary. It should never again “depart from your mouth”. Now that does not mean you will not say other words. Although those other words must be in line with what the Word of GOD instructs you to say.

Once you start saying this Word, it will occur to you to find out what “obeying and serving” GOD means. Why? Because the purpose of not allowing GOD’s Word to depart from your mouth is because you have to get used to it to the point that it becomes a part of you.

But think about this for a moment. If you keep saying something all the time and you’re not doing what you say, does it make any sense?  Of course it doesn’t. This is why it is so important that you know what GOD means by “obeying and serving” Him. That’s only when you can do it the way He wants you to do it. (And I will cover this topic in another write-up).

Here is another instruction. In Matthew 5:44, Jesus tells believers: “But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.”

That’s a clear instruction from our Master, the Bishop of our soul. That’s something for you to meditate on if you want to live the life of obedience to the Word of GOD. James puts it this way in James 2:21-23 (NKJV):

21. “Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
22. “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
23. “For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror;
24 for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.
25 “But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.”

See? GOD’s Word always tells you what to do to have your life decorated.

“You shall meditate in it day and night…”

To meditate is an act of turning things over in your mind. One dictionary says it is “focusing one's thoughts on (something) or reflecting on it or pondering over it.” That simply means whether it’s during the day or in the night, you must continue to turn the Word of GOD over and over in your mind.

And you do this all the time without perhaps knowing that is what you’re doing. When someone insults you (we have all been insulted at one time or the other in our lives), the thought of it goes everywhere with you at least for the next couple of days. You’re thinking something else and all of a sudden that insult floats back into your mind. “So that fellow called me a big headed fool?”

And for the next few minutes you’re thinking about the insult all over again and, if you’re like me many, many years ago, you start to think of ways you will retaliate. That is how we meditate on things. So now, turn that process around and use it to meditate on the Word of GOD.

Take for example the instruction in Job 36:11. If you acquire it as part of your new vocabulary, and you’re saying it over and over, you will get to a point where you’ll be familiar with that Word. But it will still not deliver the full benefit to you because you’ve not taken time to meditate on it.

But when you start to turn it over in your mind, and you’ve been careful to know what it means to “obey and serve GOD”, you will naturally want to discover several ways of serving and obeying GOD. That is what meditation will do for you. Meditation will ensure that the thought of it consume you totally.

And as you meditate on this Word and it becomes clearer and clearer to you, you will be ready to do what GOD instructs you to do next in order to achieve the level of success He wants you to have.

“That you may observe to do according to all that is written in it…”

This is the most important part of this instruction, “to do according to all that is written in it.” Success cannot be in sight in anything we do unless we understand and do this critical part of GOD’s instruction. It’s that important.

Many people who genuinely crave success falls short at this point. They will do every other thing that GOD recommended. But they will either do this part halfheartedly or they will not do it at all. We all are guilty of this at one time or the other in our lives.

Yet this is an important element of achieving success according to GOD’s prescription. This is what separates the successful from those who are struggling to succeed.

What does it mean to do according to all that is instructed? One classic example is found in John 2:1-12 where we read about Jesus turning water to wine in His very first miracle on earth. The key part of this miracle was that Jesus gave instruction to the waiters serving guests at the wedding ceremony to fill empty pots with ordinary water.

Thank GOD these servants were not like you and me before we finally learn this principle. They didn’t stop to question Jesus why they have to fill pots with water when what was needed was wine that they ran out of in the middle of the marriage ceremony.

Well, what follows as these servants obeyed the simple instruction that Jesus gave them? The water was turned to wine! A wine so good that the chairman of that ceremony had to wonder why the new wine that was served was better than the one they had been drinking.

What is the lesson from that miracle? Whatever GOD ask you and I to do, we must do it UNQUESTIONINGLY in order to get the result we want.

Do I have a testimony that this has ever worked for me? Yes. And I am not saying it has worked for me a number of times. It has worked for me ALL THE TIME I have been careful enough to follow GOD’s instructions, including when I fell critically ill between 2012 and 2014 and I even, at one time, thought GOD was about to call me home.

There was one thing I hung on to all throughout the attack on my health: GOD had assured me in His Word that He would restore my health in Jeremiah 30:17 (that’s just one of such promises in the Bible). He had done it many times before 2012. So I did not have any problem believing that He would still do it again.

He’s GOD, and the Bible says He changes not (Malachi 3:6). I said to myself, if GOD did not heal me, no one else could. That I am alive is evidence of the fact that if we do what He says we should do diligently (in this case trusting Him with the whole of our heart without seeking other alternatives, alternative here refers to babalawo and the gods they serve); we will get the result that He promised, no matter how long it takes in our own eyes for it to happen.

For it is not always that the result will come as quickly as we want. At least this last healing did not come as fast as I would have wished. (I’ve had partial stroke which he cleared off in three short days in 1999 and I’ve had hypoglycemia on the eve of my 60th birthday during which I only regained consciousness hours later at the hospital but early enough for me to be at the Thanksgiving Service that was planned for my birthday!).

But if we don’t turn away from Him; if we stand firm on His Word and do what He says consistently while trusting Him to do what He says He would do in His Word, we shall make our way prosperous and have good success in all that we do.

Glory be to GOD!