TALK IS NOT CHEAP
HEAR NO EVIL | SEE NO EVIL | SPEAK NO EVIL (PART 2)
If you’ve travelled overseas you might have experienced the strange sensation of hearing a whole people group speaking in a language you don’t understand. They understand each other – but you don’t understand them. Their language is a defining factor of their culture.
I wonder what a Jesus-follower should sound like?
Our words identify our culture and condition – The health of our heart, the beliefs we foster, our attitude, motivations and expectations for life. How we speak tells everyone around us which culture we belong to.
Our speech gives us away, and it changes gradually by the influences we surround ourselves with. The Apostle Peter spent his formative adolescent years with fowl-mouthed, uneducated, unkempt fishermen but after spending time with Jesus his language changed.
Do you remember when Peter was denying Jesus just before the crucifixion? At the time when Jesus was being tried, sentenced, mocked and beaten where was Peter “The Rock”? Peter was MIA – hiding among the crowd. Peter was afraid of being associated with Jesus; afraid for his own life. He denied Jesus vehemently three times. He even used an oath – he absolutely swore he did not know Jesus. But he couldn’t get away with it.
And a little later those who stood by came up and said to Peter, “Surely you also are one of them, for your speech betrays you.” (Matthew 26:73)
OH MY LORD!! That’ll preach on its own!
When you’ve spent time with Jesus, when He has revolutionised your life, when He has loved you and freed you, your speech will give you away!
Even more powerful to understand is that your words create. As soon as they leave your lips your words sprout extremities, they pick up tools and get industrious constructing the confession they were birthed out of. Think about it – the first function of speech was not communication it was creation. In the very beginning, before anything else had been or happened God SAID, “Let there be… and there was”.
Our words have power! Our words create!
Life and death are in the power of the tongue. (Proverbs 18:21)
God calls us not only to speak life over what already exists but also to speak into existence that which has not even happened yet. Often that means speaking assuredly about an impossible situation.
God said to an infertile 90-year-old Abraham that he would be the father of many nations! When Paul recounted this phenomenal moment in Romans he wrote:
As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations, before him whom he believed, even God, who quickens the dead, and calls those things which be not as though they were. (Romans 4: 17)
I just love the power of this. Look closely:
THE REVELATION COMES BEFORE THE MANIFESTATION
AND THE CONFESSION IS ITS PROPELLING FORCE
First you believe
Then you speak
Finally your confession comes to pass
YOUR GOD-GIVEN PROMISE WILL BE EITHER DELIVERED OR TERMINATED BY THE CONFESSION OF YOUR MOUTH.
Some say talk is cheap. I disagree. I say talk is very costly indeed.
I double-dare you - go ahead - call those things which are not as though they already are. Make room for that (impossible) promise with your words today!
Now buckle yourself in…
Many Christians wonder why their situations don’t change. I am often saddened by the words I hear spilling from their lips – the same lips God Himself created and breathed into. Their confession is a cacophony of horrendous lies spoken into the atmosphere of their worlds.
“I’m so broke I can’t make ends meet”
“My child is far from the Lord”
“I’m bankrupt”
“I feel disconnected”
“I can’t kick this habit”
“I will never get over this pain”
These lies are whispered into our thoughts by the enemy of our souls. We rehearse them, meditate on them, ascribe more authority to them than Heaven’s promises and we speak them out without disciplined consideration. If that is the way you speak, then yes, you’re right; that is exactly what the reality of your situation will be.
But check this out:
… for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. (Revelation 19:10)
Every word you speak is prophetic. If that’s true, then your words get busy the moment they leave your mouth.
You should try testifying Jesus into your situation. In doing so you are prophesying His perfect, finished, victorious work over it.
What did Christ say about your life?
What is your portion because of and through the finished work of the cross?
What is your inheritance because of His love for you?
What is your confession? Because that is what you’ll have.
I encourage you, not to exalt your situation above the Cross – that doesn’t even make sense – the Cross is far greater than anything you are facing. In Jesus you have endless hope and complete freedom – think, dream and speak out of that place.
Live from there.
