Words
are powerful. They can create or destroy, build up or tear down. The power of
words is not measured by their volume or intensity of their delivery, but by their effectiveness in fulfilling their
purpose.
Powerful speech flows from an inspired
heart, either for good or evil.
An example from history illustrates
the point. Sir Winston Churchill, the English war-time Prime Minister, inspired
a nation
to greatness by using his words to create a picture of victory in the face of
certain defeat. His famous address calling the nation never to surrender turned
Britain’s darkest hour into its finest. His words created faith in a nation
& inspired the whole
world to believe that good could come triumph over evil.
On the other hand Adolph Hitler used
his skilful manipulative way with words to inspire a nation to evil. His words
were so powerfully motivated by the appalling intent in his heart that he nearly succeeded in his grandiose scheme of world domination. His words
created fear & inspired men to do inconceivable evil on a colossal scale.
The Bible perfectly describes the
devious power of the words Ps 55:21
The words of his mouth were smoother than butter,
But war was in his heart;
His words were softer than oil,
Yet they were drawn swords.
But war was in his heart;
His words were softer than oil,
Yet they were drawn swords.
Endless pictures of both good & evil
can be woven by our words. What we say reveals what is in our hearts. God had
the image the creation in His heart before the world ever was, When He spoke this image into being,
His words created exactly what He had within Him, through the power of the Holy
Spirit. In Genesis we see time & time again how God spoke the creation into
existence Gen 1:3
Then God said, “Let there be
light”; and there was light.
This was God's first divine command
which begins the process of transforming the chaos. The words "God
said" appear ten times in chapter 1 as a means of bringing about life
& order. The exact working relationship among the members
of the Trinity in this process is not clearly defined in the Bible, see
Col1:16. Light is the presence of illumination in general.
We too create with our words. We bring
things we see in our hearts into being through out mouths, just as God did.
If our words are godly words we will create the
lifestyle God wants us to have, that is heaven here on earth. If on the other
hand our words are not godly they will create the lifestyle the devil wants us
to have-hell on earth. The choice is entirely ours.
Winners don't entertain thoughts or
words of defeat. If we want to be winners in life we need to start speaking the
way winners speak. The only way we can do that is to find out what God wants us
to speak & to concentrate on doing the things He wants us to do.
Words determine the shape of our
lives. We live today in what we said about ourselves yesterday. Tomorrow we
will live by what we say about ourselves today. If we don't like who we are
today, then we need to change our words.
If we can control our words then we can control our life.
The Bible shows us that just as ships
can be controlled by small rudders & horses by bits in their mouth, we can
be controlled by our seemingly small & insignificant tongues.
James 3:2-4
For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also
to bridle the whole body. Indeed, we put bits in horses’ mouths that they may
obey us, and we turn their whole body. Look also at ships: although they are so
large and are driven by fierce winds, they are turned by a very small rudder
wherever the pilot desires.
Bridle your tongue! Monitoring every
word we speak may seem cumbersome at first, but it will serve to advance
righteousness.
Nothing can cause more damage then the
tongue. Keeping our speech under control is a discipline believers
must develop.
As the pilots of our lives we need to
set our mouths in the right direction. We can't simply turn them lose to say
whatever we feel like. Our tongues can set our whole lives on fire. They can
corrupt our whole person.
If you are anything like me, you have
probably wished that you had held your tongue. Maybe some reasonably innocent
situation flared up into a major disaster all because of foolish words. Prov 18:6-7
A fool’s lips enter into contention,
And his mouth calls for blows.
A fool’s mouth is his destruction,
And his lips are the snare of his soul.
And his mouth calls for blows.
A fool’s mouth is his destruction,
And his lips are the snare of his soul.
Words can also do untold good. If the
careless use of a rudder sends a ship on to the rocks, & wise use steers it
through a narrow channel into a safe & peaceful harbour. Just like the
yachtsman setting his course with a rudder we set our course with our mouths.
What we say determines our nature & our life.
There is one simple reason why words
have such a powerful effect on our lives; that because words have enormous creative power.
God created the world with words. When
He said Let there be light!, the bible tells us light was! & God, who created us
in His own image & likeness, put into us the same power to create with the
words of our mouth. God framed the world with His words, & we
frame our world with our words. Hebrew 11:3
By faith we understand that the worlds
were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made
of things which are visible.
Our belief concerning God's creative act exemplifies the evidence of things not seen
in verse 1 of this chapter. Which says Now faith is the substance of things hoped for & the
evidence of things not seen Heb 11:1
We have been given a unique ability to
create a vision on the inside of us. Champions see themselves successful
long before they taste it. On the other hand losers see defeat long before it
happens. Success or defeat are birthed in the mind. Our mind needs to trained
to think godly & positive thoughts & our mouths to release these
same thoughts in words so that our
vision inside of us becomes a reality.
When the Bible says God made us in His
image it means, that we are spirit, just as He is. Each of us is a spirit
who lives in a body & has a soul that is the area of the mind, will & intellect. Since we
are really spirit beings, we have the same power as God to create any vision we
see in our spirit-through our mouths.
The Bible often refers to our spirit
as our 'heart'. If we are not familiar with God & His ways
we will have evil hearts. Our spirit will be dead to the things of God, our
mind will be negatively programmed by the world our body will be involved in
some form of carnality. If we are familiar with God & His ways we will have
a 'good heart'. Our spirit will have come alive to the things of God, our
mind will be in the process of being renewed by His Word, & we will be
presenting our body daily to the Lord.
Every person speaks from one of these
two hearts, either good or evil. Even as Christians we can
speak from an evil heart at times. For while our spirit is alive to God, we can
still be held captive by our old ways of thinking & acting.
Our words reveal what we really are
like in our hearts. A good man will bring out good things from his heart while an evil man will bring out evil. Jesus made this very clear when
He said it was not what went into a man that defiled him but what came out of
him. Matt 12:34-35
Brood of vipers! How can you, being
evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings
forth good things, and
an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things.
This analogy demonstrates that the
blasphemy was not merely an utterance of the lips, but
an expression of character.
Our words will always indicate what we
are consistently seeing, hearing, thinking & doing. It's impossible to
imagine a sports person who will not find a way to talk about sport, the thing
that consumes his thoughts will always will always find a way through to his mouth.
In fact every word we speak has its
origin in our thoughts. Some thoughts remain no longer then the time it takes
to think about them, & our ensuing words have little impact. Thoughts like
that don't influence us to any great degree. Students everywhere
are living examples of this. They cram dozens of ideas into there minds for an
exam which are not there a day or two later!
On the other hand thoughts that find
there way down into our spirit impact us enormously. Thousands of thoughts invade our space
every day. Our minds reject many of theses. So not every thought we have is
conceived in our imaginations & birthed back through our mouths. But some
get down into our hearts, & it's these that have creative power
for good or evil when they leave our lips.
We all know by experience how thoughts
filter down into our spirits till the opportunity comes to speak them out.
Generally they come out in fits of emotion: rage, abuse & anger that is
when our fuse is lit by some situation we are struggling with. We give
everyone a piece of our mind, then stand back & say we are sorry because we
don't know where it all came from.
The truth is, we know where it came
from. Our mind & emotions have been rehearsing exactly what we would say if given the chance.
When deeply meditated thoughts flow
out into words we see the incredible creative power of words at work. What we
say both creates & reveals the basic orientation of our lives.
If we are programmed to the ways of the world
we will constantly speak words of negativity & defeat. Like "the kids
get sick every time we go on holiday", "David will probably die like
his father at forty with a heart attack" "I just know I'll have an
accident at that intersection one day" & so on.
The amazing thing is that the kids do
get sick every holiday, David does suffer a heart attack & dies, & you
do have an accident, just as you predicted.
We may think being negative is just
being realistic, but what we are in fact doing is creating the very thing we fear. Even before it happens we picture
it happening. That picture is so compelling that we really do start to believe
it will occur. we are quick to tell every one who will listen about our fears.
we become our own worst enemy, for the things we say will come to pass. We of course don't
want them to come to pass, & live in hope & pray they wont. But they do. & they always will till we change the image of fear
in our hearts to one of faith & bring our words in line.
Another place we see the power of words is with anxiety. so many people feel that if they
could just stop their minds going around & around all the time, thinking about
all their worries & anxieties, they would be able to cope.& you know
they are right Prov 12:25 Anxiety in
the heart
of a man causes depression, but a good word makes it glad.
If our minds are always centred around
our worries & fears, those images will be like a stronghold in our hearts.
We will find ourselves speaking out about our problems to anyone who comes near us. By our words we can make our anxieties seem
impossible to overcome. Eccl 5:3 For a dream comes through much activity & a fools
voice is known by his many words.
Dreams are often the products of
natural anxieties, care & concerns, with little meaning behind them. Even so the fools words are many, with little
meaning behind them.
When we speak, we must be aware that
the Lord hears every word we say. Presumptuous speech displeases Him & can
bring discipline.
The solution is to change our focus from the problems to the answers we truly desire. it takes the same
time to speak the positive as it does to speak the negative. It is much better
to say:
"The children are always healthy
on holidays", David will have a long & healthy life," Making the
change is not easy We can't speak this way because we
don't have a mental picture of the positive things in our hearts. The only
picture we have is the well developed negative. We are like cameras that can't
reproduce a positive picture because we are focusing is always negative.
We may try to suppress our words,
somehow knowing we should not be negative, deceitful, depressed etc. But if
they come from established attitudes in our hearts we are fighting a loosing
battle. The answer is that we have to change our
hearts before we can change our words.
The most effective way to change our
hearts is to change our mind to think in a different way. The mind is the
gateway to the spirit, & whatever gets down into our spirit through our
mind will effect every single part of our being.
God tell us in His Word that the way
to change our mind is to renew it by the Word of God. Since God's Word is
spirit & is totally positive, alive, creative, & energising, it's only
natural that a consistent diet of such food will produce that image in our hearts. But on the other hand
a steady diet of negatives, death, destruction, horror, doom & gloom will
produce negative, fear-filled images in our hearts.
It is not enough to determine by an
act of our will that we are going to stop speaking negatively. As every sport minded person
knows the only way to stop speaking defeat is to speak victory. & the only
way to speak victory is to find out what God is saying & to say that. God's
Word is absolute truth so when we speak we are always speaking what is true.
There is only one way to get the word
of God in our hearts & that is by confessing it that is out loud-to
God, to others & to yourself, until the Holy Spirit establishes it in your
heart & your faith raises up to embrace it. Speak it out again & again, Now this is not a
gimmick but a faith principle because we are told So faith comes by hearing, & hearing by the Word of
God Rom 10:17.
Be consistent in your reading & study
of God's Word. Recognise that your faith will grow only as
much as you feed on God's Word.
When we hear the words of life coming
from our mouths, they flow from the Spirit of God into our spirit.
John 6 63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits
nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, & they
are life.
Words don't have the luxury of being
neutral. They come from one or two realms: the kingdom of light, which is God's
kingdom or the kingdom of darkness which is satan's. One is for good
& the other is for evil. There is no middle ground.
Words will create either life or
death, encouragement or discouragement, peace or strife, health or sickness,
blessing or cursing, wealth or poverty, love or hatred.
Every single day we have a choice to
make between these two. We can speak words that produce life & health or words that produce fear
& death. We need to deliberately set our mouths in the direction of our
desires. If we want healing then we cannot afford to talk sickness. If we want
peace we cannot afford to talk about anxieties, cares & worries. If we want success we cannot afford to talk defeat.
God instructs us to choose Him above
all else. If we make our choices according to the world's standards, we will be
choosing the way of death, because many things which seem right to the
world are measured by secular humanism, which is very wrong
to God. But if we make our choices according to God & His ways we will be
choosing life.
God tells us to obey His Word; the
world tells us rebel against all types of authority & do whatever we like.
God tell us to avoid sin; the world tells us to enjoy
everything that brings pleasure without any thought of responsibility for our
actions. God tells us to proclaim His promises by faith & walk towards
their fulfilment; The world tells us to believe only what we see & stay grounded in our many fears. God tell us to give; the
world tells us to keep. God
tell us to love & forgive; the world tells us to hate & get even.
Whatever God says the world’s system is programmed for the exact opposite.
Jesus told us that we were
to live by the words that came from His Father, He lived by them & overcame
death, hell & the grave. Our testimony can be the same, if we resolve to do
& say all that is written.
But He answered & said It is
written "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of
God. Matt 4:4
Jesus appeal to Scripture provides a
clue for interpreting the Temptation narrative. Using the Word of God, He is
victorious over the same temptations to which Israel had succumbed in the wildness, when they forced a test upon God in time of
need.
Do you want your words to produce what
is good & peaceful in your life? Then you must know which words are God's
that produce faith, & which words are the devil's which produce fear. Then
you must speak God's words so that the Holy Spirit can
establish in your heart the realities that those words express.
As you heart changes, out of that
transformed heart will come faith-filled words that will change your world. Ps
34:12-13 Who is the man who desires life. And loves many days, that he may see good? Keep
your tongue from evil, And your lips from speaking deceit.
Trust that He will hear & answer.
Guard carefully your speech. Know that righteous speech carries with it the
promise of long life.
Acknowledgements Dr
Margaret Court.
