So, as I’ve told you all before, on Thursdays, instead of doing normal ministry, we get a lesson, followed by debrief and activation, and I wanted to give you all a sample of one of them!
Last Thursday, we learned about why it’s so important to speak life, and what speaking life even is!
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” We all know this verse, and all of you probably know how He created them. Through His words. Those are some pretty powerful words, aren’t they?
Now, when God created us, He made us in His image. We’re not infinite and all powerful, like God is, but we’re made of the same light, and He’s given us some of that power. You know what that means? Our words also have power.
James 3 talks about the power of our tongue, and how so often we don’t use it for its intended purpose. Should cursing and praising come out of the same mouth? No! Our words reflect our thoughts, so if our thoughts are holy and life giving, our words will also be!
What does it mean to speak words that are holy and full of life? Jesus said he is the way, the truth, and the life. Speaking life, means speaking truth over people. It means talking as Jesus would have talked. It means proclaiming things as they are!
In Judges 6, when the angel speaks to Gideon, he addresses him as “mighty warrior”. Gideon certainly didn’t seem like a mighty warrior at the time. In fact, he was doing everything he could to try to prove why he shouldn’t be the one to rescue Israel!
But God looked beyond his actions, and saw him for whom he was meant to be. God created him to be a mighty warrior, a rescuer, and even if Gideon didn’t see it himself, it didn’t make it any less true.
Speaking life is speaking into existence what God has proclaimed to be true. We’re called righteous, even if our actions haven’t lined up with it. We’re called perfect, even if the world we live in has corrupted us. We’re called loved, even if we can’t feel it, because God sees more than what our earthen vessels do. He sees us as the eternal beings He created us to be!
You can only serve one master, and in the same way, you can’t speak life and death at the same time. You will speak life, or you will speak death. There is no middle ground.
A quick word to finish up: I can say I’m feeling sick, and it’s not speaking death, because I’m actually feeling ill. But if I linger on that, saying to myself, “My life is the worst! My body isn’t working the right way and everything is miserable.” Then that’s speaking death. What I should say is, “Yeah, I’m not feeling my best right now, but God calls me whole, so that’s whom I am!”
I hope you learned something from this quick summary, because I certainly learned a lot!
The people to be careful of are the ones who take a “statement of present fact” e.g. “I am (happen to be) sick (right now)” and try to turn it into a “statement of death” by catastrophizing e.g. “you are and will always be sick”. It takes quite a bit of prayer to deal with people like that 🙁