What do I Speak?

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Good morning.

Many troubles cross the way of someone I know and that of her family, and she constantly talks about it. I know many people who boast about the medical conditions they have and every time I see them, it seems to be worse. I’ve learned that we must watch our tongue for we speak curses over ourselves. We read in James 3:6: “And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell.” You can read the whole chapter at http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=james%203&version=NKJV

Through gossip it can affect society terribly, but today we’re going to look at what the tongue does to us as a person. I often warn such individuals, as mentioned above, about the danger of proclaiming the negative over you all the time.

What do we see in James 3:6 above? The tongue defiles the whole body and sets on fire the course of nature. What we speak determines what is going to happen in our life – our destiny. If we declare sickness and problems over ourselves all the time, we give the devil the mandate to do it, since the tongue is set on fire by hell. Satan tempts us to prophesy negatively over ourselves, which then gives him the mandate to give life to those prophecies, i.e. to make them happen.

What is a prophecy? It’s something someone said he would do in future and it will happen. When the Lord whispers in our ears what is to come, we speak out the prophecy and it will come to pass at the appointed time. When Satan whispers something in our ear and we prophesy it, it will also come to pass. When we proclaim God’s prophecies we exercise faith, i.e. if we believe what the Lord told us and we proclaim it to be so and to become true, we act in faith. Fear is the opposite of faith. Fear is faith in Satan, so to speak. If we fear what Satan whispered in our ear and keep on proclaiming it, we’ll receive it.

In Job 5:15 we read: “He saves the needy from the sword in their mouth.” We really need to watch what we say. If we keep on telling ourselves how tough life is, how unwell we are, how much trouble we have, etc. we’re looking to only receive more of what we proclaim over ourselves. But if we proclaim the promises of God in faith, that’s what we’ll receive. ‘I’m blessed along with Abraham, a man of faith,’ (Galatians 3:9), I’m blessed in my doing because I look “into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts,” (James 1:25), I’m blessed when I remain steadfast (James 5:11), suffer for righteousness' sake (1 Peter 3:14) and when I’m insulted for the name of Christ, (1 Peter 4:14). By his wounds I have been healed, (1 Peter 2:24).

Do you see we have a choice? In times of affliction we can moan and groan, telling everybody how bad life is and receive more afflictions. Proclaiming fear and negativity doesn’t have to be public to bear negative fruit. Even if we groan to ourselves, we show fear to Satan and lack of faith to the Lord. Or we can proclaim faith and God’s promises and be blessed and healed. Even if we’re not healed immediately, God’s blessing will sustain us and protect us from further harm.

Lord, please teach me how to speak well of myself.

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