We are constantly asked by others or demanded via commercials to consider one thing or another. In other words, there is a vying for your attention and more than just attention, your consideration. First let’s define it. To consider is to think carefully about (something), typically before making a decision. So there is much that comes across or passes through our minds eye, but there are those things in particular about which we give careful thought or consideration.
1 Samuel 12:24 (ESV) — 24 Only fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart. For consider what great things he has done for you.
As the prophet Samuel was preparing the people for his passing from the scene, the people begged him to never cease to pray for them to which he presented a litany of instructions, including the words, “consider what great things he (God) has done for you.”
Well, that would certainly be good instructions for each of us on a daily basis. If you had to make a list of ten things right now, what would it be? Can you list ten things that God has done for you or ten blessings, if you please? What a great way to begin your day. If you can’t think of anything else, you can consider the words of Jeremiah when he was stuck in a complaining attitude:
Lamentations 3:21–24 (ESV) — 21 But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: 22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; 23 they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”
If you need some additional help in positive contemplation or reflection, also known as consideration, then notice what else the Bible says as we get the instruction to consider:
Matthew 6:25–30 (ESV) — 25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
Luke 12:24 (ESV) — 24 Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!
Psalm 8:3–4 (ESV) — 3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?
Haggai 1:5–6 (ESV) — 5 Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. 6 You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes.
Hebrews 12:3 (ESV) — 3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.
The world may tell us to consider this or that, but God says to consider His wonderful works, His care for us, His consideration of us, our ways – even the consequences of failing to be totally devoted in our walk with God, and of course the Lord Jesus who endured it all on our behalf. Bottom line, we must take time to consider the works and words of God or we’ll find ourselves missing out as we consider everything else but what is really important. No wonder God commanded Job to stop and consider the wondrous works of God.
Job 37:14 (ESV) — 14 “Hear this, O Job; stop and consider the wondrous works of God.
Godspeed,
Bob Brubaker
