death and life are In the power of the tongue

Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.
Proverbs 18:21 | NKJV

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About seven years ago, I had a problem with my hip and lower back. The pain was excruciating – especially at night. I couldn’t bear to put any pressure on my left hip, and my back locked repeatedly.  Then, I went to church one Sunday and someone had a word about a hip being healed. I was prayed for and within about three hours, my hip and back were completely healed. Praise God!

In the years that followed, every now and again, my hip and back would “forget” they had been healed. They would ache and lock and cause me pain. I  learned not to panic (trust me, that was a hard one!) and instead, began to use the word of God to get my body to line back up with God’s will for me and the healing it had already received. I spoke the scriptures over myself out loud. I bound the enemy. I thanked God for the healing.

To be honest, I felt a bit of a wally - the problem usually recurred first thing in the morning so I was invariably decreeing and declaring in my PJs! - but I did it all the same. I said something like:

“I bless you mighty God, that you are Jehovah Rapha, the God who heals me. You are the One who has healed me all of my diseases (Ps 103:3). I thank you that I am healed by the stripes of Jesus (Is 53:5). I know my prayer of faith saves me and the Lord will restore me (James 5:14).”

I commanded my hip to get back in line with the healing it had already received and kept speaking to it until it did just that! At the beginning, it took a whole day for my hip and back to respond. After a while, it took less than five minutes for me to be fully mobile and without pain.

Why am I telling you this? Well, obviously, I’m sharing a testimony of God’s greatness and faithfulness to me but this is about more than that. This is about the power of speaking God’s word. Let’s look at what the bible says:

The word of God is life
Proverbs 4:20-22 tells us to attend God’s words; to consent and submit to His sayings. We are not to let them not depart from our sight; we must keep them in the centre of our hearts. Why? Because God’s words are ”life to those who find them, healing and health to all their flesh.”

The word of God is powerful
“The word of God is living and active and full of power [making it operative, energising, and effective]. It is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating as far as the division of the soul and spirit [the completeness of a person], and of both joints and marrow [the deepest parts of our nature] (Heb 4:12 | AMP).

The word of God has an effect:
God promises His word will not return to Him void (useless, without result), without accomplishing what He desires, and without succeeding in the matter for which it is sent (Isaiah 55:11).

These verses tell us that if we use the word of God we can guarantee that something powerful and life-bringing will happen as a result.  But we can’t do it in silence, or in our heads.

The bible gives us a process to follow. It’s in Ezekiel 37, when Ezekiel speaks to the dry bones.
God says we have to hear him in the situation we’re facing (which is easy when we’ve deposited God’s word in our hearts – see Proverbs 4!). Then we have to speak the word he has given us and do it with faith.

We need to hear the word of God, speak the word of God and believe the word of God.

That can be challenging. Ours ears are bombarded with so much information and opinion every day and some it sounds a lot like death. It’s tempting to join in and moan about our economy, the NHS, the education system, our partner, our boss, our colleagues, our health, our finances, our children, our future…

But we’re the church. We have a God who never stops speaking and Jesus, who isn’t just revealed in God’s word but IS the Word. And we have the Holy Spirit who seals the life-giving words of God to our spirits. We are not called to speak death. We are called to speak LIFE!

This is not about suppressing our feelings or pretending that sickness doesn’t exist. It is about walking by faith and not by sight. We can’t expect to experience the breakthroughs we want if we speak out what we see and feel, rather than what the word of God tells us is the truth.

Every time we speak the word of God, we magnify Jesus’ finished work on the cross. We can trust that as we speak his words of victory and comfort and encouragement and challenge, things will change. We can be confident that we will see the blessings of the Lord in the land of the living (Ps 27:13). And our mighty God has given us a word for every situation (Prov 4 says life!) – including our healing.

The power to change things is there in the word of God. And you can put that power to work by using your mouth well.

Until next month

L x