Happy Resurrection Day everyone and welcome to the PLN Sunday Night Bible Fellowship!

As you know, this is a series about the POWER of the Word of God. The TRUTH is, most Christians overlook the fact that the Word contains ALL of the practical, useful POWER necessary to achieve success and victory in any endeavor. It's already present within the Word itself, and it's available to any Believer in Christ who will trust and believe it. In fact, we have a COVENANT right to use it to change our circumstances and overcome any obstacle. All we have to do to access it and put it to work is UNDERSTAND it enough to AGREE with what it says about a particular subject, and then release our FAITH that the Word will perform exactly as it says it will.

Notice that we have to UNDERSTAND what we're AGREEING with and in previous articles we've established that UNDERSTANDING comes from study and meditation on Scripture. FAITH is about TRUSTING and you can't TRUST something that you don't have some UNDERSTANDING about. That's just the way the Kingdom of God works and there's really no other way to access the POWER that's been made available by GRACE (the undeserved favor of God) under the New Covenant. Even if you hear the Word preached, you still need to go into Scripture yourself to study and meditate on what you've heard so you'll UNDERSTAND it and not allow the enemy to come and steal it. In sum, all you have to do to have VICTORY in life is essentially to read the Word of God, meditate on it, agree with it, unite it with your FAITH and take action on it. The WORD takes care of the rest with the same resident POWER that created the universe in six days and raised Jesus from the grave four thousand years later.

Now, even though all that POWER is readily available and it is God's desire that we access it as often as we need to, there are a number of factors in Christian life we have to deal with that work against it. Let's call them HINDRANCES and the PLN article of February 10 identified eight of the major HINDRANCES that we need to be continually alert to. One of them was/is HARDNESS OF HEART which we have been investigating in this Newsletter for the past six weeks. If you missed any of those previous articles, I encourage you to click on the link to the ARCHIVES that you'll find at the upper left of this page because a lot of people are walking through life in defeat and tribulation and difficulty and insufficiency and confusion, simply because they don't realize they should be dealing with their HARDNESS OF HEART. This week we take up a second major HINDRANCE which is probably the most prevalent power-grabber of all and the one that's most overlooked.

Underestimating the Power of Our Speaking

During my early years as a Christian I didn't pay all that much attention to what I was speaking. Early on I had managed to stop using profanity, and thinking that was all there was to it, I wasn't too concerned about the rest of my conversation. From time-to-time I heard certain teachers around the Body of Christ say that our speaking is really, really important because it DETERMINES who and what we become in life, but my reaction initially was that they were being overly dramatic about it. How could something as "insignificant" as spoken words with no physical form to them possibly have the profound effects on our quality of life that they were trying to convey? I was convinced that my "good works" would define who I would become in life and that my speaking was incidental by comparison.

It took a while for me to finally figure out that any good works I came up with were pretty much history and notably unremembered by the end of next week. That might have been related to the fact that my bad works far outnumbered the relatively few good ones I could come up with. But the truth is, people just don't remember most of our good works for very long. On the other hand they DO remember for some reason what we say and especially if what we say offends them or disagrees with the way they see things. Have you ever considered that most strife comes from what we SAY to each other? What is strife anyway except either an exchange of harsh words, or if we want to really punish somebody, the withholding of words?

Somehow after quite a few years, one of those teachers finally got my attention one day and I suddenly came to the UNDERSTANDING that words are important, that there are powerful spiritual principles involved that most of us have been conditioned by the World to NOT give consideration to. And I remember grappling with the following scriptures wanting to disregard them but increasingly unable to do so the more I considered what they're actually saying:

Matthew 12:34-36 = "...the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart...and...every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the Day of Judgment." 

One of the things I've learned about the Bible is that there are no words in there that have been casually included. No, they've all been carefully selected by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and whatever He does is ALWAYS purpose-driven. Those words aren't there accidently. So, we overlook them or undervalue them or disregard them at considerable risk of not being able to embrace and UNDERSTAND the purpose the Holy Spirit had in mind when He inspired the Apostle Matthew to write down these particular words as he quoted Jesus in the process of actually speaking them. But what finally got me to the right side of this issue was UNDERSTANDING the following set of scriptures. Now, I have done here tonight what I don't normally do which is to quote a lot of scriptures, but in this case I'm hoping to make an impression you WILL remember. You won't be sorry if you take a moment and carefully read what the Apostle James had to say about the tongue:

James 3:2-10 = "For we all stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body as well. Now if we put the bits into the horses' mouths so that they will obey us, we direct their entire body as well.

"Look at the ships also, though they are so great and are driven by strong winds, are still directed by a very small rudder wherever the inclination of the pilot desires. So also the tongue is a small part of the body, and yet it boasts of great things. See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell...

"...no one can tame the tongue (on their own); it is a restless evil and full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God; from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way."

For the Christian who longs to walk in victory instead of defeat, in all sufficiency instead of insufficiency, in good health instead of sickness and disease, these are indeed some of the most powerful scriptures in the New Testament. They cannot be overlooked or downplayed or disregarded. The words have been carefully crafted by the half-brother of Jesus, inspired by the Holy Spirit to make some life-changing points:

* By not stumbling with our words, we bring control to our physical bodies. We don't "stumble" with our words when we speak in AGREEMENT with the Word, when we AGREE with what God says.

* Our tongue governs what we say and causes profound things both good and bad to happen in our lives even though it is the smallest part of the body.

* The tongue though small can DEFILE the entire body and ruin the course of our entire lives. Conversely, by using the tongue to AGREE with the Word we bring control and order and success to our lives. In sum, we determine the course of our entire lives, good or bad by how we speak.

* Our tongue has the ability to bring both blessings and curses on others and on ourselves as well. We should be committed to speaking blessings which means to speak in agreement with the Word.

* It is impossible to control the tongue and become proficient in AGREEING with the Word in our own strength. We need help from the Holy Spirit and we have to overcome the HARDNESS OF HEART we bring to this subject from our former lives in the World where they don't particularly care what they say.

The Punchline

The Bible says in another place that our tongue has the ability to actually CAUSE both death and life (Proverbs 18:21). Many Christians encounter this verse and think: "Yes, I know that by what I SAY I can cause someone to either feel hurt or encouraged, angry or happy, despised or loved. I can see that my speaking has power over OTHER people." But most of us fail to consider verse 20 and the second half of verse 21 which clearly establish that the death and life this scripture is talking about are for the PERSON DOING THE SPEAKING, not the one who's hearing. In other words, I bring death or life to the things I myself am going through, the things I am having to experience and deal with in my life: I bring failure or success, insufficiency or abundance, defeat or victory, good or bad, cursing or blessing into my own life by what I SAY with my mouth. The WORD is alive (Hebrews 4:12); therefore when I speak in agreement with it, I CAUSE life to be released; when I disagree I bring death to HINDER the ability of the WORD to affect my circumstances. By speaking disagreement, I cut off my POWER SOURCE.         

Friend, if you really believe the Word of God and are serious about wanting to live in VICTORY, it's absolutely vital that you pay attention to the words you're speaking. Why? Because these scriptures tonight tell us that what we SPEAK is one of the main factors that determine the quality of life we're presently experiencing. You need the POWER of the WORD working at full capacity if you want the FAVOR of God active in your quality of life. Is your life characterized by retreat and insufficiency and defeat OR by increase, prosperity and VICTORY? The reality is - wherever you find yourself tonight is largely the result of the words you've SPOKEN over the course of your life and especially during the last few months and years: "the tongue is a fire which (defines) the course of our life" (James 3:6).

I hope you got something out of this tonight. If not, read it again and go to your Bible to meditate on the scriptures we reviewed here in their respective contexts. In the weeks to come we'll be looking from other perspectives at this important topic of being accountable for our speaking. God wants the full POWER of His WORD to be working in your life. Jesus paid for it and it's yours to have, but let your speaking AGREE with what you've ALREADY been given.

Thanks for joining our discussion tonight. We'll be looking for you again NEXT Sunday night on April 12. In the meantime may the Lord bless you with every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3), compelling 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.

http://www.creditcounseling.net/prayer-request.aspx 

Donations

If you've been edified by Prosperous Life Newsletter, you may want to consider making a SEED FAITH offering to support the Ministry (Galatians 6:6-7). God has instructed us to simply provide folks with an opportunity to sow seed into good ground so in due season you'll be eligible to reap a harvest and the rest is up to you as the Spirit leads. For your information PLN is a nonprofit gift to the Body of Christ so your financial offerings will usually be tax deductible (consult your tax advisor). Just go to the secure Shopping Cart on the Cornerstone web site by connecting through the following link. We appreciate your support and generosity.

http://www.creditcounseling.net/shop/item.aspx?itemid=1 

About Prosperous Life Newsletter

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