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TEACHING: 12 SCRIPTURAL REASONS TO JOURNAL AS A WATCHMAN

There are many motives for journaling as a watchman. After journaling an average of 100 pages per month since 1984, I can probably say I have covered all the good and bad reasons for journaling! On the wrong side, if it is a journal about walking with God, then it is not going to be a negative catharsis of your own miseries, nor is it going to be venting a record about other people and their wrongs.

Journaling takes time and commitment and it can become a job. After journaling for 26 years I have clearly faced a few seasons of extreme burnout where I didn't think I had the grace to continue. When you hit a brick wall and don't think you can dip your pen in the ink even one more time, every motive for journaling, surely goes through the fire.

Ps 12:6-7 NKJV

The words of the Lord are pure words, like silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. You shall keep them, O Lord, You shall preserve them from this generation forever.

That being said, here is a list of some of the scriptural reasons I have discovered, to journal as a watchman.

1) To Delight God - Giving Him Joy

Mal 3:16 NKJV

Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another, And the Lord listened and heard them; So a book of remembrance was written before Him. For those who fear the Lord and who meditate on His name.

My highest motive for journaling is to give God delight! The Lord loves to listen to those who speak about Him. It means so much to Him that He has recorded a book of remembrance.

Here is my favorite Word given to me about writing as a gift to the Lord.

1/13/09 EXPERIENCE:

Today, when I was driving in the car, I had a picture of my going up to someone and gazing into their eyes. I specifically took their cheeks in my hands and looked into their eyes and prophesied into that person with all the love I had. I had the feeling that the gesture was significant, that I really needed to reach deep inside to that person's heart. After seeing that, I told the Lord after seeing that picture that I really wanted to prophesy over people with this same deep level of love into their need.
A few hours later we went to a house meeting and 3 people prayed over each one of us and gave the Words of the Lord. The 3 were behind the hot seat, laying hands on the person sitting there. When it was my turn to be prayed for, one of them heard the Lord tell her that she was to go around to the front of me and hold my cheeks and look into my eyes and tell me something! Here is what she heard:

'Tell her I can hardly wait to read what she writes each day! I can hardly wait to see how she pulls it all together.' She said, 'You are called to be His scribe to the body of Christ.' She later told me that it was awesome to think about, because I had His anointing and gift to write, but He trusted me enough to write for Him and He wanted to read it. I was overwhelmed with tears, it had to be the most honored, loving Word I had ever received.

As we were leaving the meeting, she specifically again mentioned that she was told to take my cheeks and look into my eyes. Upon her repeating that, the Holy Spirit brought back the picture I had a few hours earlier of my doing that very same thing in the car! All the love and yearning I experienced when seeing that picture - to reach the depths of that person I was speaking into! That was the LORD for me!!!!!!!!

When I have been in the deepest pit, having faced the judgments and opinions of men, the curses of witchcraft , the demonic slime and health issues.. not knowing if I had the grace to continue, the Lord has brought that amazing Word back into my memory. God has given us EVERYTHING. He is so rich. The fact that we can give Him joy by journaling His Words, is such a blessing. I had no idea my writing gave Him pleasure!!!! It gives me so much honor and zeal to think I give Him joyful anticipation in what I write!

2. To Keep Things In Remembrance - The Power to Recall

John 14:26 NKJV

But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.

When we record the stirrings from the Holy Spirit, what is quickened, the revelations He gives us, our prayers and answers, anything about our journey in Him, it gives us the ability to go to the source. After several thousand pages, the Holy Spirit whispers maybe just one keyword to me, and I have the ability to do a word search and find all the times He spoke that word in other settings. Many times when I go back to the original source of having written it down, I find the details that I have forgotten. I can then bring all the nuggets together, bypassing years and time and see the larger picture of what He is saying.

3. Stirring The Gift He Gave - Priming the Pump of Living Waters

Mark 4:23-25 NKJV

If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.' Then He said to them, 'Take heed what you hear. With the same measure you use, it will be measured to you; and to you who hear, more will be given. For whoever has, to him more will be given; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.'

Journaling our life in God is one way of stirring the living waters of the Holy Spirit. The more we utilize the gifts He gives us, the more He gives. The more we hear from Him and use what we hear, the more He gives us. When we write under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, it is His living waters flowing through us. Journaling is drawing those waters up and overflowing at the surface. Journaling God's Words is spending time in His anointing, with Him!

4) Chance To Teach - Educating Others On God's Point Of View

John 15:20 NKJV

.. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also.

I once heard a writing teacher say, 'Show it, don't tell it.' It was a profound cliché that has been a life long help to me. No one wants to listen to a dry black board lecture of knowledge. Everyone wants to see the same knowledge come alive with living examples.

Jesus taught by example. His life was a role model and living example of the heavenly Father that no one could see. He showed the kingdom of God by walking it out and He also shared living parables from their surrounding environment to share His Truth.

When you journal as a watchman, you have a chance to share your story of how God reaches you and then share it with others. Teaching by modeling is a powerful tool through the written word.

5) Chance To Vote - Planting His Kingdom On Earth

Job 22:28 KJV

Thou shalt also decree a thing, and it shall be established unto thee: and the light shall shine upon thy ways.

The scripture is very clear that our words have power to speak life and death, blessings and cursings. We are the salt of the earth and much of our salt or lack of it comes through our words. Our vote matters in everything we say. To walk as a watchman on the walls, we must be very careful about what we say and only use our words to cast our vote for God's kingdom, not our own, and not the world's. Our vote for God is always yes to Him and no to the devil. When we are faithful with God's Words, He gives us great authority and what we say casts our vote into the earth.

Prov 18:21 NKJV

Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.

When we journal the Words of the Lord we have been given the tool to overcome evil with good. We do this through obeying the definitions of love and also fixing our minds on whatsoever things are of good report.

1 Cor 13:4-7

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

Phil 4:8 AMP

For the rest, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is worthy of reverence and is honorable and seemly, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely and lovable, whatever is kind and winsome and gracious, if there is any virtue and excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think on and weigh and take account of these things [fix your minds on them].

6) Anointed Hands - Turning to the Word of the Lord

Ps 119:105 NKJV

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

I love the gift of anointed hands! That is simply giving your hands to God and asking Him to consecrate them for His good work. Then when you need to hear from Him, you can pray over your hands and open at random a time in your journal! In dark times when God is not talking, or hiding His face, the past Words of the Lord and His promises carry you. If you did not journal, you would not have the ability to re-live those precious faith lifters any time you need them!

7) Building a Legacy - Leaving Memorial Stones for Another Generation

Deut 6:7-9 NKJV

You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

As a spiritual parent, I have something to pass down to my children. When you are young, you are too busy accomplishing what you want to be. When you get married you are too busy taking care of your family. So it is not easy for someone who is younger to be able to journal in the same way I do. I was given the time, grace and lifestyle to journal as a full time commitment. Not everyone has that grace.

However I read the simple autobiography of one of my relatives. It was a very small book and written very simply. And yet her story came alive on the pages and it inspired me so much to see how the Lord had taken care of her and been with her through out her life. She spotlighted a few of her stories, skipping from here to there and she had written a treasure for her progeny yet unborn. Within every one of us is a story, our history, His story of how we got through life with His Words to us. If all we do is journal for the sake of a loved one yet to come, we have planted something very precious before we die.

8) The Power to Keep - Treasuring His Words as keepsakes

John 14:23-24 NKJV

Jesus answered and said to him, 'If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father's who sent Me.

Have you ever saved a special card, letter or note from your loved one, and kept it in a special place? If you do that, it says that you have treasured it as something valuable from someone's words that really matter to you. That's what we do when we keep God's Word.

Wow the Lord strongly emphasizes 'keeping' His Word. If we keep His Word, we are promised intimacy with Him! He even mentions the promise with the same Greek word, that if we 'keep' His command to persevere, He will 'keep' us from the hour of trial that will come upon the whole earth.

KEEP

NT:5083

tereo (tay-reh'-o); from teros (a watch; perhaps akin to NT:2334); to guard (from loss or injury, properly, by keeping the eye upon; and thus differing from NT:5442, which is properly to prevent escaping; and from NT:2892, which implies a fortress or full military lines of apparatus), i.e. to note (a prophecy; figuratively, to fulfil a command); by implication, to detain (in custody; figuratively, to maintain); by extension, to withhold (for personal ends; figuratively, to keep unmarried); by extension, to withhold (for personal ends; figuratively, to keep unmarried):

KJV - hold fast, keep (-er), (pre-, re-) serve, watch.

Rev 3:10-11 NKJV

Because you have kept {5083} My command to persevere, I also will keep {5083} you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth.

What is keeping His Word? Keeping His Word is holding it in our hearts, in memory, pondering it, watching over His Word and seeing how it applies to every day life and also in the world. Keeping His Word is preserving it, holding on to it as our dearest treasure. Keeping His Word is so honoring it as from His heart, that we obey it as our highest level of Truth. In so doing, we also keep ourselves from the wiles of the devil and the world. One of the ways we can keep His Word is to journal.

9) Building Faith - Hearing the Word of God

Rom 10:17

So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

When we journal, we are given the power to change lives by letting others hear the Lord of the Lord through us. Their faith is built by hearing His Word. When God gives us a Word over our having faced a certain circumstance, it is a powerful testimony and increases the faith of those who are following in similar journeys.

When my son had our third grandchild, they discovered she had heart problems in the womb. Path finder 8 5 16. She was safe getting the oxygen she needed through the placenta, but once born she would need open heart surgery where they stopped her heart. Many people prayed for this precious child as she was growing and she was not healed in the womb. She had 3 surgeries in her first 2 weeks of life.

One of the most precious gifts knocked on their door a week before birth. A Christian family they had not met brought their children and a casserole over to their home, to freeze for later. As they sat down on their couch, they said they had a story to tell them. And they proceeded to share how their baby had the same condition in the womb and had to go through the same surgery. They shared how God brought them through the trauma and here was that precious child, a living testimony before their very eyes. One can only imagine the life line this gave my son and daughter in law as they walked through the days ahead.

We have no idea how much our lives make a difference to someone else! When we journal our walk with the Lord, we have a chance to build the faith of others!

10) A Sacrifice of Time - Sacrifice into His secret place of intimacy

Luke 2:37-38 NKJV

..and this woman was a widow of about eighty-four years, who did not depart from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day.

When we journal the Word of the Lord and what He is saying to us, it really is a sacrifice. It is saying that we value spending time with Him more than any other thing we could be doing at that time. The Lord has promised that He will gather us TO HIM, if our lives are a sacrifice to Him.

Ps 50:5 NKJV

'Gather My saints together to Me, those who have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice.'

11) Study to be Approved - Knowledge Built Through Personal Revelation

2 Tim 2:15 AMP

Study and be eager and do your utmost to present yourself to God approved (tested by trial), a workman who has no cause to be ashamed, correctly analyzing and accurately dividing [rightly handling and skillfully teaching] the Word of Truth.

Studying can become an exercise of the mind where one will leave the table with a bigger head and drier heart. The key to studying the Word of God is to make it personal with His quickened Words, and to ask for revelation so that He will reveal even deeper truths to what we already know. The more we journal His Words and what He has said to us in the past, the more pieces of revelation have a chance to puzzle together. It really is an enjoyable time when we read passages of scripture and draw upon our history and connect it with what He is saying now.

12) Write the Vision - Be Accountable With What We are Given

Hab 2:2-3 NKJV

Then the Lord answered me and said: 'Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time; But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.

Being a Watchman is a position and a job. As we are faithful with what He gives, He will give us more. It is very hard to be a watchman and see past the first yard without keeping track of what He has already been saying. He asks His watchman to keep a record.