Wednesday, November 16, 2011

The Power Of Our Words, Part 1

Solomon wrote the book of Proverbs. He was and still is considered to be the wisest man who ever lived, and he was certainly the wealthiest man who ever lived on the earth. It is impressive how much Solomon writes, particularly in Proverbs, about communication—about the words that we speak.


The words that you speak have tremendous power and can produce either beneficial or detrimental results. In fact, in large part, wherever you are in life right now is due to the words you have spoken. Those words are a result of what is going on in your heart and your mind.


“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”

“Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.”


Your mouth speaks and tremendous power is released through the words that you let go. I would like us to look at a portion of Scripture that is very familiar for most of us. We can all quote verbatim the first half, but we do not give enough attention to the second part of the very same verse. Here, in Proverbs 18:21, we are told that death and life are in the power of the tongue. I want you to consider that once again. I know that we refer to this passage a lot, but we do so because it’s important! The words you speak have the potential to impart either death or life. It’s a life and death situation, my friend.


In the New Testament, James says that out of one side of our mouth we speak blessing, out of the other side of our mouth we speak cursing. Even though he said this ought not be so, I sometimes find it true in my own life. I might say something like, “By His stripes I am healed, but boy, I sure feel bad.” “God supplies all my needs; where are we gonna get the money?” Out of one side of my mouth flows a blessing and out of the other side a cursing. And “a cursing” in this sense does not involve witchcraft, voodoo, or any such thing. It simply means the restraining or restriction of God’s blessing in my life.


How successful do you want to be? What is it that you want to do in life? Where do you want to go? Your words have a direct correlation to the degree of your success. It has tremendous relevance on your level of influence in this life. Now we oftentimes quote, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue,” but we ignore the second portion of this verse: “Those who love it will eat its fruit.” In other words, we eat the fruit of the words that we speak. Our words produce fruit, whether good or bad, sweet or bitter, and we are partakers of that fruit.


The things you go through are oftentimes the result of how you have thought and what you have spoken out of your mouth. We are responsible for the words that we speak. As we use words, we either fall under the power of death, or there is the potential to attain to greater life. Our tongue can cause us to experience either blessing or lack. I like to remind folks that our tongues were involved in our being saved. According to Romans 10:10, Apostle Paul says that you have to believe with your heart and with your mouth confession is made unto salvation. We believe in our heart unto righteousness, and as a result of what’s in our heart, we speak, we confess that Jesus is Lord, and we experience the new birth; we are saved.


But I also want to remind you that Jesus doesn’t just come into our lives simply to change us. He comes into our lives to make something new, not to just change the old, but to make provision for something brand new. You’re not only being changed through the transformation of what Romans 12 speaks of; you are to experience a whole new life.


Your life ought to look different than before you were saved. And one reason it doesn’t in the lives of many people is that they never change the way they think and the words that come out of their mouths, particularly about their own life. “Daddy was a loser, so I’m a loser, too.” “Momma said there’d be days like this, Momma said.”


Now, I’ve already stated that Solomon is regarded as the wisest and most certainly the wealthiest man on the earth. He’s highly respected. Those under his authority respected him; he was also greatly respected by other kings, dignitaries, and world leaders. First Kings chapter 10 gives us an account of the Queen of Sheba’s visit. Most of you are familiar with this, but I want to make a couple of points.


“Now when the Queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, she came to test him with hard questions.” Now let’s just stop there for a moment and examine this. The Queen of Sheba heard about the fame of Solomon concerning what? The name of the Lord. So she came to him with the intent of testing him. The Scripture says that she came to test him with hard questions. Starting with verse 2 the Bible states, “She came to Jerusalem with a very great retinue, with camels, spices, gold, and precious stones. When she came to Solomon, she spoke with him about all that was in her heart.” What was in her heart? All these hard questions. So Solomon answered all her questions. There was nothing so difficult for the king that he could not explain it to her. “When the Queen of Sheba had seen all of the wisdom of Solomon . . .” Just stop right there, she saw the wisdom.


Now, as we read on, we recognize that she saw the wisdom through his lifestyle, in those around him, and in those who worked for him. She saw it in those with whom he had surrounded himself. But she also saw it in his words, as he was able to answer the questions with which she had come to test him! Wow! Her intention was to put him to the test with difficult questions, and he didn’t stumble or fail; he answered every one of them and at that point she realized, “I see wisdom here.”


I’ll pick up with this in my next blog, but in the meantime, this would be a good opportunity to ask ourselves a few questions such as: What do people see in my words? Do others see wisdom displayed in my lifestyle? I pray that each one of us is found faithful in the usage of our words to promote life, wholeness, and good fruit!


~ pg

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