The Focus Principle asserts that what one meditates upon, one ultimately moves towards. This episode examines the profound impact of focus on our lives, emphasizing that true prosperity is not merely a function of hard work but rather the result of deliberate and focused meditation on divine promises. Drawing from Joshua 1:8, the discussion reveals that prosperity follows those who anchor their thoughts in the Word of God, thus activating the prosperity promise embedded within His teachings. As we navigate through the complexities of life, it becomes imperative to redirect our gaze from distractions to the sacred truths that guide our paths. Through this series, we will explore how aligning our focus with God's word can reshape our realities and lead us towards abundance. This episode serves as an enlightening initiation into the series "What You Focus On, You Move Towards," centering on the focus principle as delineated in Joshua 1:8. The speaker compellingly argues that meditation on scripture is a critical element of spiritual discipline that fosters prosperity and success. Through the lens of target fixation, a driving phenomenon illustrating how focus dictates direction, the message asserts that what occupies one's mental space ultimately dictates life outcomes. The discussion transitions into a broader theological context, linking the focus principle to biblical narratives, particularly that of Isaac, who thrived even amid famine by maintaining his focus on God's promises. The episode invites listeners to engage in a reflective audit of their focus, urging them to replace negative thought patterns with affirmations grounded in scripture. By the conclusion, a transformative challenge is presented, encouraging listeners to meditate on God's word daily, thereby realigning their focus towards the abundant life promised in scripture.

Takeaways:

• The principle of focus is a spiritual discipline that directly influences our prosperity.
• Meditation on God's Word transforms our mindset and aligns our actions with divine promises.
• By redirecting our focus from problems to promises, we can unlock our true potential.
• Prosperity is guaranteed through the sequence of meditation, obedience, and subsequent success.

Links referenced in this episode:

• Joshua 1:8
• Genesis 26:1
• Proverbs 23:7
• Romans 12:2
• Philippians 4:8

Keep this book of the law always on your lips.

Meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do everything written in it.

Then you will be prosperous and successful.

Joshua 1:8 There is a quiet epidemic sweeping across every nation, every culture, every income bracket.

Not a virus of the body, but a virus of the mind.

Millions of people are working hard, praying hard, and still standing still.

Not because God has withheld the blessing, but because they have fixed their eyes on the wrong thing.

Where your attention goes, your life follows.

This is not motivational psychology.

This is ancient scripture.

This is the way God wired the universe.

What you focus on, you move toward.

What you meditate on, you manifest.

What you keep before your eyes, you eventually walk into.

For better or for worse.

This three message series, brothers and sisters, is a precision invitation.

We take one of the most ignored principles in the Bible, the law of focused faith, and show how it unlocks the prosperity principles in the Bible and the principles that God has already promised.

Our anchor figure is Isaac.

In the middle of a global famine, when every economic indicator said stop.

When every sensible voice said wait, Isaac sowed and he reaped wall 100fold.

Not because of the famine, ended because Isaac kept his focus on the promise, not the problem.

From Wall street to rural Indonesia, from Lagos to London, from a single mother in Manila to a young entrepreneur in Sao Paulo, the principle does not change.

What you focus on, you move toward.

And if you focus on God's word, God's promises and God's prosperity plan, you will move toward towards abundance that the world around you cannot explain.

The series structures is in three messages.

Message one we will uncover the focus principle where we talk about that you need to meditate to activate.

Message two is fix your eyes on the promise and sow in famine and focus on God.

In message three, think your way to harvest where we uncover Isaac's 100 fold return.

Welcome to this message series.

What you focus on, you move toward.

And now we will move to the first message in the series.

What you think about, you walk towards.

Now brothers and sisters, if this is your first time in this podcast, this is the message with NJ where we inspire faith and empower lives through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And if you've been listening to the message close to on 200 messages, you already know we don't do surface level here anymore.

Right now we're starting a brand new series and I want to tell you up front this is going to rearrange some things.

Not just in your theology, in your bank account, in your Household, and also in the way you think before you even get out of bed in the morning.

And this series is called what you focus on, you move towards.

And we start with the foundation, the focus principle.

Now, there is a phenomenon, brothers and sisters, that every driving instructor in the world will tell you about.

It is called target fixation.

Now, if you're driving and you stare at the puddle you're trying to avoid, you hit it every single time.

Your hands follow your eyes, your car goes where your gaze goes.

Racing drivers know this.

Pilots know this.

Cyclists know this.

And God knew this before any of them.

Because Joshua 1:8 is the oldest instruction on focus in recorded history.

God did not say to Joshua, work harder, strategize better, network more efficiently.

No, no, he said, meditate on the word day and night.

Keep it on your lips, let it never leave your sight.

Then.

Then you will be prosperous and successful.

Prosperity, brothers and sisters, is not the reward for the busiest person in the room.

Prosperity is the reward for the most focused person in the room.

And the question God is asking every one of us today is not, how hard are you working?

The question is, what are you looking at?

Because what you meditate on, you move towards.

Joshua 1:8 tells us that you need to keep this book of the law always on your lips.

Meditate on it day and night so that you may be successful to do everything written in it.

Then you will be prosperous and successful.

The Hebrew word for meditate here is hagah.

It means to murmur, to mutter, to speak softly to yourself.

The ancient rabbis didn't meditate on silence.

They meditated out loud.

They spoke the word over and over until it went from their mouth into their mind, into their marrow.

Joshua 18 is not asking you to think nice thoughts.

It is giving you a prosperity activation sequence.

Meditate on the word, obey the word.

And prosperity follows in that order.

Every single thought time.

Now, God gave this instruction to Joshua right at the moment of maximum pressure.

Moses was dead.

The Jordan was ahead, the promised land was occupied.

In other words, God gave the focus instruction precisely when there was the most to look at.

That could distract.

That is not a coincidence.

That is a pattern.

Now think about it this way.

Your mind is like a search engine.

Whatever you type in the search bar, that is what the algorithm serves you, right?

If you type in, I can't afford it, I'm behind.

Nothing is working.

The algorithm of your mind will serve you evidence for all of it.

But if you type in what God says, what God has promised, what God has already done, watch what the Algorithm starts to return.

Prosperity begins in the mind before it begins and appears in your life.

The biblical pathway to abundance starts with what you choose to focus on every single day.

Well, some of you may say that sounds like the law of attraction.

That's not Christianity, that is new age positive thinking.

The law of attraction borrowed from scripture, not the other way around.

Joshua 1:8 was written over 3,000 years ago.

Proverbs 23:7 says, As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.

Romans 12:2 says, Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Philippians 4:8 tells us exactly what to focus on.

Things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely and admirable.

Now the baby.

The Bible was teaching cognitive transformation long before any self help author put pen to paper.

Now the difference is the Bible tells you what to think about.

Think on the word, think on the promises, think on God's track record.

Now, in this moment, this week, this month, this year, audit your focus.

What are you reading the first thing in the morning?

What are you listening to in the car?

What are you scrolling before bed?

Whatever has your attention has your direction.

Now point one of the message.

We need to focus and understand.

The focus is a spiritual discipline, not a mental trick.

Meditation on the word is not a self help tool.

Bottled and onto Christianity it is the engine of covenant prosperity.

God built the principle into the first leadership commission he ever gave.

Before Joshua conquered anything, before one Israelite soldier crossed the Jordan, God said meditate, not make a plan, not build a team.

Meditate because the internal world creates the external outcome.

Joshua 18 says, Then you will be prosperous and successful.

Now whether you are a business leader in Tokyo, a farmer in rural Brazil or a student in Lagos, the principle does not adjust for geography.

The word of God is not culturally conditional.

What you meditate on, you move towards.

On every continent, in every economy and in every season.

Can I get an amen?

Now what you meditate on, brothers and sisters, you move towards.

The second point of this message is your focus determines your floor.

Most people are living beneath their covenant inheritance not because God withheld, but because their focus focus has set on an inevitable ceiling, an invisible ceiling on what they believe is available to them.

Now when you focus on the problem, the problem becomes the perimeter of your life.

When you focus on the promise, the promise becomes your perimeter.

Now Isaac's story begins in Genesis 26 with a famine that affected every nation in the region.

But God appeared to Isaac and said, do not go to Egypt.

Stay, I will bless you.

Here Isaac's focus had to shift from the famine to the promise and that single shift changed everything.

Genesis 26:1 2 says, now there was a famine in the land besides the previous famine in Abraham's days.

And Isaac went to Abimelech, the king of the Philistines.

In Gerar.

The Lord appeared to Isaac and said, do not go down to Egypt.

Live in the land where I tell you to live.

Others focused.

The focused ones saw what the promise said and made strategic moves that built generational wealth.

The famine is real, but where you put your focus determines where you end up when the famine is over.

Your focus doesn't just determine your mood, it determines your move.

Point three of the message prosperity follows the focused.

Joshua 1:8 does not say prosperity might follow.

It does not say prosperity could follow under the right conditions.

It says, then you will be prosperous and successful.

The then is a covenant.

Then it is a guaranteed sequence.

Meditate, Obey, prosper.

Now this is the original prosperity framework and it has never been updated because it has never needed to be.

Psalm 1, 2, 3 tells us, but those whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night, that person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither, or whatever they do, prospers.

Now, a tree planted by water does not produce fruit because the season is good.

It produces fruit because its roots are in the right source.

Your focus is your root system.

Root yourself in the word and prosperity becomes seasonal, not occasional.

We spend more time focused on the news cycle than the word cycle.

We know the inflation rate, the interest rate, and the crime rate.

But we couldn't quote three prosperity scriptures without googling.

No wonder we feel broke.

We have been fed a diet of problems and wonder why we keep producing problems.

Change the feed, change the focus, change the fruit.

Now, some of you have been focused on your debt so long.

Your debt feels like your identity.

Some of you have been focused on what you don't have so long.

Lack has become your language.

Some of you have been focused on what went wrong so long you have forgotten that God specializes in making things right.

But today, today in this message, we change the channel.

Not because the problem isn't real, but because the promise is more real.

Not because the famine isn't happening, but because God is bigger than the famine.

Not because you stop being honest about where you are, but because you stop being honest about where God says you are going.

Where Are you directing your eyes today?

Where are you directing your mind?

Where are you directing your time and your thoughts and your words?

Words.

Because that is the address your life is moving to.

Here are some applicable lessons we can discuss every morning this week by reading one prosperity Promise from Scripture out loud.

Meditate on it.

Speak it.

Mutter it.

Repeat it.

Audit your media diet.

Identify the top three inputs competing for your focus.

Ask are these moving me toward the promise or toward the problem?

Write Joshua 1:8 somewhere you will see it daily.

Your phone.

Wallpaper, your mirror, your desk.

Let the words stay in your sight.

Replace complaint language with covenant language.

Instead of I can't afford it, say I believe in God for provision.

Word words reinforce focus.

Identify one area of your life where your focus has been on the problem.

Deliberately redirect.

Find the scripture that addresses that area.

Meditate there.

Now.

What do you spend most of your mental energy thinking about in a given day?

If your current level of focus is on God's word, has it produced a financial return?

What would that return look like?

And what does it look like?

And what is the dominant narrative running in your mind about money, success and your future?

Have you been treating meditation on the Word as optional or as the prosperity engine God designed it to be?

What would change your life this week if you meditated on Joshua 1:8 every single day this week?

Your assignment is simple, not easy.

Meditate on John Joshua 18 every day for seven days.

Read it in the morning.

Speak it out loud.

Write it down in your own words in a journal.

Ask God to show you where your focus has been misaligned and let him redirect it.

Come back to the next episode, because in the next message we go deeper.

We are going to look at the moment Isaac actually sowed in the middle of famine and what his eyes were fixed on when he did it.

Let us pray.

Father, we come to you today with open minds and honest hearts.

We confess that we have given our focus to things that were beneath our covenant.

We have stared at the problem until the problem looked bigger than you.

Today we make a deliberate choice to redirect.

We choose to meditate on your word.

We choose to keep the promise before our eyes.

We choose to speak what you wish say about us, not what the economy says, not what the news says, not what our circumstances say.

Let our focus shift, and as it shifts, let our lives follow.

Prosper us according to your word.

In Jesus mighty name, Amen.

You know the irony?

Most of us pray for God to move mountains and then spend the rest of the day staring at the mountain.

Focus and prayer are not the same thing.

Prayer invites God in focus determines what you see when he shows up.

Here is a challenge for every listener this week.

Put your phone down for 10 minutes and pick up the word.

Not an Instagram devotional, not a Twitter thread with a Bible verse.

The actual physical Bible.

The physical word.

Sit with it, speak it, let it get in your system.

Then that 10 minutes will do more for your prosperity than 10 hours of scrolling.

Isaac didn't have a financial calculator.

He didn't have a diversified portfolio.

He had a word from God and the focus to act on it.

And he asked.

Outperformed everyone around him in the middle of a famine.

Imagine what he would have done in a bull market.