Our Words Have Power

In the beginning God spoke and it became as he said.  He spoke our world into existence.  His words are power.  Genesis 1:26-27 (NIV) continues:  Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.  We are made in his image, so we also speak words of power.

This is where we immediately get into trouble.  We tend to fall on the side of error with how we talk rather than the way God would have us talk.  Our words must line up with his words.  Instead we put ourselves down.  Say stupid things when we get angry.  Gossip, rumor mongering and negative words come out instead.  We like to complain about how hard life is as if our woe can out do someone else’s woe.  Your words are going to tell the truth about you whether you want them to or not.

I cannot stand myself when I’m in a negative funk.  I definitely do not want to be around people who are being negative with their talk.  I do not need any help in making myself have a bad day, if I so chose.  See it comes back around to us choosing again  We can chose how we want to feel about something.  We can chose how we speak to a problem.  We may think we have firmly made a choice and then we open our mouths and the truth comes out.  Are you saying negative things about your life or are you speaking God’s Word against all those problems you see?  The problems are going to happen, but how we speak about them will make a huge difference.

James nails this issue squarely in verses 3:8-10 (NIV) of his book.  But no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be.  I do this.  We all do this.  We praise and curse out of the same mouth and think we are doing all right.  Well, we are not!

We need to be aligned with God’s Word in order to even have a chance of knowing the right way to go with our words.  However, we want to gloss God’s words over because they hurt, they go against what we want, and we really don’t want to admit our faults.  Let’s hide them over here in the dark where no one can see them.  Sorry, light comes even in the darkest place.

Hebrews 4:12 (NIV) sums up how God’s Word works.  For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.  So if God’s Word can do this to get us thinking the right way, how much more should we watch our words?  We slice ourselves and others up so easily with the tongue and this is why.  Words hurt. 

We do not even want to have to deal with offense in our society anymore.  You must talk to me the way I want you to and say only what I want to hear or you are being mean to me.  Ouch!  Really?  We cannot even politely rebuke someone when they cause an offense without people getting defensive.  Worse, it is our loved ones we bash on the most and share the most negativity with as if that will make our lives better.  Sure we need to talk about things, but we need to allow some correction in our thinking, too.  We spew out all our woes and do not allow some help on the matter.  We like to wallow in misery and then we wonder why we never see the sun.

So every day we must ask ourselves, “Where are my words leading me today?  Towards good or towards evil?  Towards blessing or towards cursing?”