The Truth is most Christians go through life giving little thought to the words we speak. If we're happy we speak happy words. If we're angry we speak in anger. Our speech tends to be led by our emotions and we use words that express our feelings of the moment. So our mouths often speak with no thought at all, reflexively, carelessly. Sometimes we notice that our words hurt others, strain relationships and cause us inconvenience; but it's easy to blame someone for having provoked us. Then on other occasions we speak hurtfully on purpose, intentionally to do damage.
Another aspect of our speech is that we tend to repeat words and expressions we've heard others use. There are always popular sayings around and most of the time we repeat them without giving much thought to their content or origin. Everyone else is saying them so we do too even though many of those words and expressions come from the World, even though many of those popular sayings are inspired by darkness and sin or even though some of what we're saying comes out of man-made religion and DISAGREES with what the Word of God actually says.
The truth is most Believers tend to ignore what the Bible says about our spoken words even though IT has a lot to say on the subject. Either we don't know what the Word says or we don't allow it to rise to the appropriate level of importance. Most unfortunate of all is that many precious Believers have lost sight of the profound long-term effects their spoken words are having on their lives, their families and their PROSPERITY.
Created in the Image of God
When a Believer is born again, his/her spirit-man is reborn in the image of God. Contrary to popular SAYING, we were not created in the image of God when we experienced our physical birth; at that time we were born in the fallen image of Adam with a dead spirit, separated from God (Genesis 5:1-3 together with Genesis 2:17). That's why we need to be reborn, i.e., born again (John 3:3). At the moment of rebirth our spirit is brought to life, we're reconciled (reconnected) to the Father and re-cast in His image as a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17-18).
To be born in the image of God means that in a spiritual sense we're like Him. We're not God but we're like Him. We were not like God before the rebirth because we had a dead spirit; after our rebirth we became one with God's Spirit. Spiritually speaking we look like Him and we have the same basic attributes and characteristics. Other than that, the major difference between us is that human Believers are submitted to God's authority while He's the ultimate Authority, an Authority unto Himself. He's uniquely sovereign but has chosen to allow people to have the ability to choose between good and evil, life and death, right and wrong, sin and righteousness, etc. We can also SPEAK as we choose.
One of the Father's principal attributes is that His words are alive. He created the universe in six days (Genesis 1:3-31) by speaking live words. Whenever He says something, the result is life and creation and increase. Since death is the result (wages) of sin (Romans 6:23), God doesn't speak death; He speaks only words of life. But because of sin and the inherited Flesh nature of Adam, human beings are able to speak both life and death. Proverbs 18:21 says: "Death and life are in the power of the tongue..."
In other words, according to Scripture Believers have the power to speak words of life because we've been reborn in the image of God but we retain the ability to speak death out of the corrupt fleshy part of us. There are only two choices; one or the other will always result from everything we say. Words of life agree with the Word of God; words of death agree with the World and the Flesh and Satan. The Words of life say we're ALREADY prosperous, successful, delivered from sickness and disease and in possession of Christ's abundance (John 10:10); the words of death are always in disagreement with the Word of God and state the opposite of its Truth.
Controlling Our Tongues
Most Believers these days are overlooking the point that ALL our words ALWAYS cause something to happen in our surrounding environment. For some reason we're prone to forget that our words will ALWAYS either cause blessing or curse, life or death, creation or destruction, for our own lives. In other words, our own lives are directly affected for better or for worse by what we say. Since there are only two choices, there are no neutral or passive or inactive words we can speak, only active words that always produce consequences. If we speak words of life that agree with the Word of God, then life will flow to and in us. We'll walk in blessing and prosperity as COMPETENT STEWARDS over our speech. But if we speak words of death that are contrary to God's Word and agree with the World and the Flesh and Satan, we'll reap death, defeat, lack, and sickness because our words opened the door to those things.
Now the tongue is certainly a very small part among many other parts of our physical bodies. However, according to Scripture it's powerful and will defile the entire body if it's not controlled. Conversely, if the tongue is controlled and used constructively in agreement with the Word of God, it has the power to purify the body and produce victory and abundance. Thus, as the Apostle James rightly saw the tongue is like a ship's rudder that sets the course of one's life and must be controlled to keep the ship moving in the right direction (James 3:4-6).
A lot of our churches are filled these days with Believers who speak worldly and/or religious confessions that disagree with God's Word. Even many church leaders who love God and are trying to be good Christians and serve their people have lost touch with the need to guard what they say. This is important because the Bible says in James 1:26 that those who want to be "religious," i.e. those who truly want to live by FAITH and righteousness, but are unable or unwilling to reign in their tongues deceive themselves and make their religion worthless. By the same token many of us who're pursuing God's PROSPERITY but have fallen short of where we think we ought to be should reflect on our past speaking and we'll probably conclude that at times, perhaps frequently we've spoken words that most likely hindered our progress.
Friend, if you have defeat in your life today, examine your confessions and judge whether or not you've been adversely affected by your own tongue. If so, you need to cast down the deception that the words you speak have no effect on your life because the TRUTH is they DO have a profound effect and the person you are today is the accumulated result of all the words spoken by your little tongue over your entire life. The remedy begins with canceling what you've said in the past, closing any doors they opened and then starting anew to guard your tongue. Ask the Holy Spirit for help and I guarantee you'll receive what you ask for. Then as you go along be aware of what you say and when you catch yourself saying something out of agreement with the Word, simply speak a CANCELLATION and substitute the correct confession you should have said. Of course to do this you'll need to be studying the Word so you'll know when you actually do speak wrongly. The Truth is no one has all this down perfectly yet except Jesus but God wants us to keep trying because the success of right-speaking will come with experience along with the abundance of Christ.
Thanks for stopping by tonight. We'll be looking for you again NEXT Sunday night January 13. In the meantime may the Lord bless you with every spiritual blessing causing you to PROSPER in every area of life.
Sinners' Prayer
If you've never invited Jesus to be the Lord of your life, you need to and you can do it today just by saying out loud the following simple prayer:
Jesus I declare today with all my heart that I believe in you and that God raised you from the dead. I acknowledge that my sins have been forgiven and I ask you to come into my life today and be my Lord and Savior. Thank you for salvation and eternal life.
If you were sincere as you prayed this prayer, God has already come into your life and you are a new creation, a totally new species recreated in His image. Now ask the Lord to lead you to a good faith-based, bible-teaching church where you can be equipped to fulfill your potential in the Kingdom of God.
And, when you get a chance have someone help you look up the following scriptures because they confirm what you've done by saying this prayer today and believing what you said:
Romans 10:9
2 Corinthians 5:17
Ephesians 2:8
Prayer Requests
If you have a Prayer Request, please connect to the Link below and follow the promptings. The PLN staff members pray over Prayer Requests every Tuesday morning at 10:00 AM eastern time. Agree with us for God to answer your petition.
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