Where are Your Words Taking You?

The power of life and death is in the tongue. You've probably heard this statement before, after all it's in the bible, (Proverbs 18:21) but how often do you stop to think about all the words that come out of your mouth? If this statement is true, which I believe it is, how many of your words are lining up with life versus death?

On average, most people speak somewhere around 15,000 words a day. Now imagine if you had a magical wand and every word you spoke came true. How might your conversations you had with yourself and others begin to change?

Well, there may not be a magical wand that causes your words to immediately turn into reality, but your words are like highways. Each word is building upon the other that eventually will lead you to a destination.

The more you speak something the more you begin to believe it. This can either work for you or against you depending on what you are saying. If you are speaking positive, life-affirming words then your life will begin to reflect these things. However, if you are speaking death and negativity into your atmosphere then eventually darkness will begin to encroach around your world.

Think about the power of words. If the Creator of the universe, God Himself, spoke the world into existence through words then everything in this world responds to words. It doesn't matter whether or not it is a living, breathing organism such as a human or an animal, all matter here on earth has a vibration.

Even hard matter such as a table is made up of moving particles such as atoms. So, even though you may not be able to see them because they are so small, they are moving, and therefore, are responding to the vibration of your words.

Even science is now proving what God has taught us in the bible for thousands of years. Scientists have discovered that the electron that is orbiting the nucleus is not always there in particle form. It exists in a wave state (like a cloud, everywhere at once) until someone looks at it, meaning when the scientist observes it, it suddenly appears.

The question this brings up is, "How does it know someone is looking at it?" Another interesting observation is that the particles behave somewhat differently based on each observer. Again, this lends itself to the question, "Does it behave according to what the scientist believes?"

When Jesus cursed the fig tree in Matthew 21:19 it says that, "....Immediately the tree withered." When his disciples asked him how the fig tree withered so quickly Jesus answered, "....Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to the mountain, 'Go throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer." (Matthew 21:21-22)

Now, I know what some of your are thinking, because I've thought it myself. I have spoken positive things over my life and nothing changed. And I'm not going to disagree with you. However, this is what oftentimes happens. We speak and believe something a few times, but when we don't see change immediately or something happens contrary to what we are believing for, we then start complaining and speaking curses over our lives.

Remember back in math class and when you had a negative and a positive. What happened? They cancelled each other out, right? That's what happens when we declare what we want to see and then when we don't get the results in the timeline we expect and then begin speaking the opposite of what we want to see we cancel out our promises. "A double minded man is unstable in all his ways." (James 1:8)

We end up coming into agreement with the opposition or contradiction that our eyes are seeing in the natural versus continuing to speak and believe what we want to see. That's what makes faith hard. It's believing in what you cannot see. If you can see something you don't need faith.

If you work for an employer and every other Friday your employer gives you a check for the hours you've worked it doesn't take faith to believe for the paycheck. You just show up at your job, clock in, put in your hours and every two weeks you get a check.

However, when you get a doctor's report that says you have a terminal illness and they have exhausted all methods of treatment and they are giving you six months to live, this requires faith. I remember hearing a story years ago about a woman who was deathly ill and whenever she would go to receive dialysis treatment she would put a blanket over her head.

She said she did this because she had been speaking and believing for her healing, but her situation was so bad that she knew if she looked at the machine and saw what it said she would lose hope to live and come into agreement with the natural prognosis of the machine and what the doctors were saying. Eventually, as she continued to believe and speak her healing she had a miraculous turn around and was healed.

Faith is believing in the unseen world. It is pulling that which is unseen into our natural world. It already exists. We just can't see it yet, but our words, faith and actions pull it into existence in this world. "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1)

Faith is like a muscle. The more you use it the stronger it gets. Someone who hasn't exercised in a long time has weak muscles. It takes a while to build them up. For a body that has been immobile, exercise doesn't come natural to them. When you do something new it feels awkward for the first few weeks and your muscles and body are sore afterwards.

Faith isn't natural. It's supernatural. Innately we are lazy creatures and creatures of comfort. Our bodies will always look for the path of least resistance. Most people who exercise will tell you initially they don't feel like exercising. They have to resist the urge to be idle, but once they start moving it gets easier. Faith is the same way.

When something bad happens or opposition comes against us our first initial urge is to come into agreement with what we are seeing, to start complaining and going back into that same pattern of, "woe is me.....it must not be meant to be....something always goes wrong...". And quite frankly it should be expected that something will go wrong, but that isn't reason to quit.

People who believe and keep pushing forward will eventually succeed. I was listening to the stories of a man who started out in sales. He said his first 14 appointments he made not a single sale. Most people would assume that sales are not for them. However, he didn't quit. He kept on going.

Today, this man who is in his 20's is one of the top sales people in the company and makes over $50,000 a month, but just because he is in the top of the company doesn't mean he doesn't still experience rejection or opposition. Just recently he called on one of his sales leads and the woman he spoke with was extremely rude and ended up hanging up on him. Again, most people would dismiss this woman and move on. Not him.

He went to her house and knocked on her door. The woman who answered stood before him with bright blue hair. He said, "I love your hair. Is that natural?" She started laughing and invited him in. After sitting down with her and her husband, the woman with blue hair who had so rudely hung up on him, ended up moving $1.2 million into an annuity with this man's company. This man got a great, big commission check, but what if he had stopped when she said she wasn't interested?

So, what separates him from those who don't succeed? After listening to this man speak he consistently talked about persistence, faith and the power of our words. He believes what he says. He speaks it out loud and then he follows through with action.

It's not enough to just speak something or believe it. We have to follow through with consistent action, and consistency is the key. Too many times we stop and go, stop and go, and end up losing momentum each time we stop. We must consistently follow through with our actions and our words even when at first we see nothing changing, but trust and believe just like a seed underground is growing even though you can't see it, your words and thought life are growing your destiny.

I used to teach aerobics and at the beginning of the year you would always see these very overweight, out of shape people who would come in to the gym and work out for like two to three hours a day. Then after a few weeks you wouldn't see them again, until next New Years. They would have been better off working out three times a week for 30 minutes and being consistent then going all in for a short period and then quitting. Stop and go produces no results.

Sometimes we do our faith the same way. We get all excited about our promise, but then after a short while of not seeing immediate results we quit, until the next spurt of energy and then we quit again. No results here.

But, if you will continue speaking words of life and declaring the promises of God day in and day out over your future, despite the opposition you may initially see, eventually you will create a highway for you to travel on that will lead you into the promises of God that He speaks about in Jeremiah 29:11, " 'For I know the plans I have for you', declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.' ", and Psalm 139:16, "You saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."

I'll leave you with these final thoughts, because I know some of you reading this want to believe what I'm saying, but you are still greatly discouraged because you have been speaking, believing and praying for things to change in your life and nothing has changed. And trust me, I get your frustration. I have experienced this type of discouragement in my own life, but I want to share a couple quick stories with you to let you know that there is power in our words.

Years ago, I was on a conference call and on the call the speaker said they needed people to sponsor tables for a fundraising banquet and each table was $300. It was a great cause that I believed in, but I didn't have an extra $300, however, before I knew it I blurted out, "I'll sponsor a table." As soon as I said it I thought, Why did I say that? I don't have an extra $300 dollars.

But, my big mouth had committed to it on this call with all these people and I knew I needed to come through. So, after I got off the call I said, "Lord, you're going to have to provide the $300 to sponsor that table." Literally, within a few hours my phone rang and it was a talent agency that my kids were with. The woman on the phone said, "I was calling to see if your son was available for a couple photo shoots. Both shoots pay $150." I couldn't believe it! Right there, just like that was the $300 I prayed for.

I got off the phone and began thanking God for the answered prayer. Right afterwards I began telling people my praise report and posted on Facebook about how amazing God was. However, as is satan's job, he comes to steal, kill and destroy. Not even 24 hours later the talent agency called back and said that something had happened and they had to cancel the photo shoots. My first thought was discouragement. I thought, God, I just thanked you for the money. Why would you allow this to happen?

But no sooner than that thought came another thought came. That is satan trying to steal from you. Don't let him. As soon as I hung up I said out loud, "Satan, you are not stealing from me and because you tried to steal from me you are going to give me back double."

The very next day my phone rang again. It was the talent agency. She said, "I was calling to see if both of your sons would be available for a commercial. It would pay $300 for each son." There went my $300 that satan tried to steal from me doubled!

The next time I had something very similar happen was a couple years later. I had started a running group at a men's prison and not long after I started it I had been told about a non-profit that donates shoes to needy causes. So, I reached out to them, filled out all the required paperwork and made a request for 30 pairs of shoes for my guys.

I was told it would take a couple months to get approval and get the shoes, but instead the whole process ended up taking much longer. There kept being delays then the paperwork ended up getting lost and I had to fill it out a few times and resend it. But finally after nine months of waiting, phone calls and emails back and forth, and measuring all the guys shoes sizes they had my 30 shoes. I was told the date and time I should expect the delivery.

I made sure I was at home during that time and eagerly expected the delivery of the shoes. However, the day came and went and there were no shoes. So, the next day I contacted them to let them know I didn't receive the shipment. They regretfully informed me they had an overload of requests and unfortunately they were not going to be able to send me the shoes after all.

I hung up the phone discouraged. I had spent all this time and effort for nothing. I had told the guys they were getting their shoes. They were all excited and now I had to tell them we weren't getting them. I started to cry, but then I stopped. I got angry. No, this is satan trying to steal from me.

I sat up and declared out loud. "Satan, you are not stealing from me. You are going to give me my shoes back! They are going to find me some shoes and I am going to get 30 pairs of shoes for my men!"

Immediately I got up and sent them an email. In the email I thanked them for their time and effort, however, I explained to them how disappointed I was in having to let the men down by telling them after all this time we would not get the shoes. I went on to explain how it may be difficult for us to understand, but for some of these men in prison who have nothing but a prison uniform, a pair of shoes can mean a lot to them.

A pair of running shoes to them was a symbol of hope and kindness. And many of the men were running miles around the yard in work boots. I told them if there was any way possible they could find shoes for my men we would be very appreciative.

The very next day I received an email. The woman explained she had read my email and it touched her heart. She went on to say how she agreed that many of these men have been forgotten by society. As she continued reading my email she said the Holy Spirit spoke to her and told her to get me the shoes.

She said, "I don't normally do this, but I reached out to some other providers I know and I just want you to know you'll be getting your 30 pairs of shoes." The next week I had my 30 pairs of running shoes for my guys. The guys were so happy and appreciative to get those shoes and to this day they still run in them.

So, I just want you to know that your words and prayers do have power, but just because you want something and pray it doesn't mean satan is going to let you have it. You have to be aggressive in your prayers. "From the days of John the Baptist until now, the Kingdom of heaven has suffered violence and the violent take it by force." (Matthew 11:12)

Stop letting satan steal from you. Demand he give back to you everything he stole from you with nothing less than double. Why stop there? Tell him he has to pay you back seven times. "People do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy his hunger when he is starving. Yet if he is caught, he must pay sevenfold, though it costs him all the wealth of his house." (Proverbs 6:30-31)

I know the journey may be much harder and longer than you ever imagined, but I assure you if you can line up your thoughts and words with what God says about you and not the obstacles and confusion the enemy is trying to get you to come into agreement with, you will make it to your destination because you're on the highway to heaven. And that doesn't mean we have to wait to die to receive the power and blessings that are in heaven. We have access to them right now through our words.

How do I know that? Because my Father tells me that in His word.

"Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." - Matthew 6:9-10