The mouth speaks

From formless earth, void and dark, God spoke and light burst forth.

Blind eyes spoken to gained sight and a fig tree cursed, withered. Demons fled at the Son of God’s rebuke, and a storm was stilled with the command for the raging waves to be silenced. It was neither smart thinking nor cunning that got Jesus out from the wilderness but the declaration of who He was as the Son of God.

And, in the same manor, He told us to do likewise; to speak to the mountain and see it moved. Truly He told us that what we asked for in in faith, without doubt, ‘would happen’. Jesus; the living example of what was within our reach if we but turned our tongue, if we tamed it, trained it; the tongue that can both curse and bless, bring both life and death. The tongue we confess with to enter into the relentless pursuit of knowing Him, the tongue that can set a great forest on fire, with but a tiny spark. The tongue, the one tongue, that when we stand before our King, face to face, we will give account for. 

So when did we count ourselves exempt? from not only the charge of Jesus, but David through the Psalms, Paul and James along with others, who warned us again and again about the power of the tongue? When, did our lips become loose, and our mouths quick to condemn and slow to build up? When did we think it viable for our lips to declare lies over truth and speak with suspicion rather than with hope?

James, In James 3, likens the tongue to the rudder that can alter the course and direction of a ship no matter how strong the winds, or the weight of the ship. Like this, the tongue though such a small member of our bodies can dictate the direction of our lives through what we speak and declare. Like Jesus, what we speak sets our lives in motion; God rides upon our words, He manifests Himself through them. We are called to speak words, like Jesus, that impact the realities that surround us. As a result, when we do heaven is released and in turn culture is transformed.

If God wants possession over our mouths, and what we speak, this means the devil fights for our words too. He feeds off destruction and disaster. He is unable to create anything new, instead, he twists and manipulates truth. When James speaks of the tongue being ‘a flame of fire, full of wickedness that poisons every part of the body’ this is the case when the devil takes possession of our words. James even says, ‘the tongue is set on fire by hell itself and can turn our whole lives into a blazing flame of destruction and disaster’. The scary thing is, satan gets his way on so many things, he steals, kills and destroys, because of the ignorance of God’s people not because of the lack of God’s power.

Essentially we’ve become a people, quick to speak death over ourselves and not life.

Death in the tongue, can look as minor as speaking tiredness over ourselves, lack of provision, complaining, sickness, or any form of negativity. We would be so shocked if we understood just how much we did this. 

By declaring these things, we agree with them. By speaking them out we essentially say that our God is not great enough to come against them. 

I believe kingdom culture is black and white. If it’s not life we are speaking over yourselves, we’re speaking death. If you’re not speaking what God thinks about you, then it’s death you’re declaring. We must fight for the position He has won for us.  We have no time, no option to live life thinking things that God does not think about us, or declaring words that He hasn’t said. We must stop giving the devil cheap access into our lives. 

If we know the things we speak manifest (from Jesus’ example, and the bible),if one word can bring life, can heal, bring encouragement and hope, how quickly too can one bring destruction. If I continually speak something as minor as tiredness over myself I will remain in a place of tiredness, because no fruit comes. Fruit only comes from speaking life: ‘Death and life are in the power of the tongue and those who love it will eat it’s fruit’ (Proverbs 18:21)

I started becoming aware of the power of my words last year and I had a negativity fast. I stopped saying things like ‘it’s gonna rain’, ‘i’m tired’, ‘I can’t do that’, ’today is gonna be hard’, ‘i’m not gonna have time to do that’, ‘that’s annoying me’ etc. In Romans 12:2, Paul writes, “And set your minds and keep them set on what is above (the higher things), not on the things that are on the earth.”  Although our circumstances may look one way, if we can declare God’s truth over our lives day by day, then I am confident we will see our mind’s transformed and God’s kingdom come in our lives. From heaven’s perspective you are healed, you are not tired, or frustrated grumpy or defeated, you are set for a great day. 

We gain heaven’s perspective through the renewal of our minds. It is required of us to ‘set our minds and keep them set’. This isn’t easy. Renewing our minds, much like living life with Holy Spirit, is like learning a new language. It’s knowing and addressing what is a lie, and what lies have taken residence in our lives, and replacing them with truth.

So, I started declaring with my mouth (Romans 10:9) what God said about me. I stood in the mirror and spoke beauty over myself, when money was slow to come in I declared that He was my perfect provider and always took great care of me. When I had to speak to groups of people, I declared that He had made me strong, powerful and capable, and that He always shows up when I public speak.

I started thanking Him for what He’d already done. In Ephesians 5:4 Paul writes, ‘Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. I may not always see what I need in the physical, but I know the resources of heaven are there for me and Jesus has already paid the price. I may not be healed, but the truth is Jesus died on the cross for my healing, I may feel tired, but Jesus said that we will never grow faint, I may have no money in my bank, but I live according to His riches and not my own. It’s never a denial of the situation I find myself in, for example, I don’t ignore the fact I have no money and go and purchase multiple pairs of nikes, or simply stifle the negative. It’s the conclusions we draw from our circumstances that make the difference. It’s the knowledge that God has said He heals, the knowledge that tiredness is never an end destination, and that though my day may look bad, I don’t let my feelings dictate my levels of joy, for my hope is not in my circumstance but in Him.

I understand this may all seem extreme. To be honest it did to me at first. It felt forced, and it felt foolish and silly to be declaring something in a situation where I definitely didn’t believe anything about what I was declaring. However this soon changed when I started seeing the fruit that came from the life giving words of my tongue. The verses that flood the bible are too many, the words of Jesus to profound and rich for me to not see the weight of the use of my tongue. I want to be like Jesus, I want my words to be like sweet honey, I want my lips to be righteous so that they delight my King. 

We perhaps also struggle because the term ‘positivity’ has become synonymous with naivety and therefore it appears futile, especially faced with what may appear as definite losses, or a group of pundits saying that all hope is lost. For an individual to perk up and say, ‘it’l be okay, guys’, or for me to thank God for my riches in glory before the day before bills are due, or to declare ‘I’m bold’ while I appear to be crumbling externally, may seem cheap. maybe that’s because we feel as if we’re speaking something out of nothing, declaring something that is not yet in existence … but wait, isn’t that the very thing God does.

In Romans 4:17, we’re told ‘God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did.'(Romans 4:17), and Jesus showed us this all throughout His lifetime. God spoke existence into formless void, and declared healing with words of life over blind eyes and lame bodies. It’s because He sees us from an altogether different perspective; drug addicts as holy men, and prostitutes as clean virgins. Like Joel, in Joel 3:10, declaring that the weakling will say ‘I am strong’. it’s more than ‘positivity’, it’s the truth about who God made us to be. And the question is are we gonna keep believing ourselves, or what God says about us? We must fight for the higher truth. 

It often also feels foreign and awkward because we have strayed so far from what God says about us, many of the things we think ourselves could not even get near to the gates of heaven. Renewing our minds takes practice, and so we must do this until our default position become the things of heaven. Declaration is essentially say the promises of heaven. it’s one thing to pray and believe and trust God for miracles, and its another thing to know that we have been given power from heaven to produce miracles.

WE MUST CHANGE THE WAY WE THINK and speak. All of the problems in the church right now, are problems we have the keys for. There are a body of people asking God who they are instead of declaring who God says they are. A people crying to get out of the wilderness, not knowing they can speak their way out, a people crying out for healing without knowing it’s already paid for. 

When God spoke to the disciples, and those He met along the way, He spoke things that were, and not things that needed to be achieved. He never said ‘you WILL be the light of the world’, ‘you will be the salt of the earth’, or, you will become conqueres etc. He told us we are those things. it’s never a matter of waiting to become something, to be bigger and better, greater, stronger, more holy and more spiritual. Instead, it’s about acknowledging who we already are. Start declaring, start declaring until those declarations and truths become a reality. 

God speaks in finite, definitive terms in the bible. Do you know why? Because he has not one inch of doubt over who we are, and He waits for His children to understand. 

We saw the life of a man who knew the power of His words, who changed the world, healed everyone who was brought to Him, moved mountains, and calmed seas with His words… and…? He asks us to do the same.