Words

“In the beginning was the Word…All
things came into being through Him and apart from Him nothing came into being.”(John
1:1&3) This is the most powerful example of the power that words have in
the history of our existence. All the way back to the beginning of the world we
see the power that lies in words. God created the world by speaking it into
existence. So sure God can just say it and it will happen but what does that
have to do with us? He says that the same power lies within our tongues. “Death
and life are in the power of the tongue.”(Prov. 18:21)

We can recognize the power in
words. Peter saw it in Christ’s words. “Lord to whom shall we go? You have
words of eternal life.”(John 6:68) Peter recognized that there are two kinds of
words: words of life, and words of death. It is easy to think that yeah sure,
sometimes, when I’m really being serious, I need to be carful with what I say
but a lot of the time I am just talking to talk and it doesn’t really matter.
The Lord says that we will give an account for every idol word that we speak.
Check out Mat 12:33-37. To me, it sure sounds like every word we speak is
important. Not only that, but every word has power behind it. We know that
words come from our mind and what is in our mind is what comes from our heart.
“The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good;
and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his
mouth speaks from that which fills his heart.”

In my life, I have experienced the
effects of clinical depression and my Dad told me something through all that
that has really helped me. Negative thoughts, lead to negative feelings,
negative feelings lead to negative emotions, and negative emotions lead to
depression. We are not designed to live in this condition. I have tested this
theory myself and all I can tell you is what I have found. When I went down
into depression, it was the result of negative thoughts in my mind about myself
and about my reality that I continued to allow space in my mind and I began to
make statements about myself that were not entirely accurate or true but they
were so negative that they began to become my reality and truth. “I am a
failure. I can’t do it. There is nothing out there for me.” These things
repeated in my mind and became statement so many times that they became my
reality to the point that for weeks I would not even get out of bed or eat or
anything because I just had no desire to even exist. Sounds crazy but it really
happens. Do you know what brought me out of that condition? My father, mother
and closest friends continued to speak life and real truth to me. “You are not
a failure. God did not put you here for nothing and to not help you and provide
for you. You are going to be happy in your future.” They made these statements
to me so often that I was able to finally see their truth.

Hold on Tim, you are starting to
sound like one of those crazies that thinks you can just speak things into
reality. Understandable. I don’t really think I can just say “I have a million
dollars” and poof, I will have a million dollars. But I am saying that I think
there is more power in our words than we might think. With a single word Christ
calmed a raging storm. That is power. With my words to myself I made my life
useless for a time, and with words it was made whole again. With words, I have
seen God’s power manifest in peoples bodies by making legs grow, blind eyes see
(yeah it really happened to our team last month), a man who could barely move
and speak from HIV two days later stand, walk to me, and speak out loud for an
entire room to hear. I don’t know how exactly all this works but all I can tell
you is that it was by speaking words of healing and life that I saw all these
thing happen.

I believe that if we continue to
tell ourselves that we are failures than that is what we become. When we speak
God’s words about ourselves, that we are His children created for a purpose
above failure and death, than that is the life and strength that we walk in.
Words are power and we have to remember before we speak them that we are
responsible for the power that our words have.