The Power Of Your Words
My mom has taught me so much, I can not express in words what she means to me. I have great parents who love us and love The Lord and are great examples to us all.
This is something my mom recently wrote and I want to share it with you, it's a bit long so be ready to read, but it was just to good not to share. I love you mom.
The power of words. “In God We Trust” and “One Nation under God” set forth the ideals, purpose and beliefs of the founding fathers in creating this nation.
“I do.” makes a lifelong commitment to love and honor another and creates a covenant relationship.
“Father forgive them” showed the greatest compassion and love the world has ever known.
“It is written” defeated (and still defeats) the devil.
“Let there be light” spoke the world into existence.
“Thy will be done” showed submission to the will of the Father. Our prayers open the floodgates of Heaven and send angels out to do warfare on our behalf. They also do the work of satan, to kill, steal and destroy. God has shown us the tremendous power that our words have and yet we still speak carelessly and do irreparable damage with our mouths. We use curse words to devalue women and compare them to dogs, we take God’s name in vain and use it to damn another one of His children or something He created. We use words to cry out to God and plead for His intervention and then to express our anger at Him when we don’t get our way. Words can lift up, show love, sympathy, praise, compassion and grace or they humiliate, tear down, hurt, and destroy. Jesus used His words to teach, to instruct, to pray, to defeat the devil, to show love, compassion, forgiveness, humility and obedience to the Father. He used words to heal the sick, give sight to the blind, make the lame walk and raise the dead. He used words to take on the sins of the world, our sins, yours and mine, and to cry out to the Father that His purpose on earth was complete,
“It is finished”. And now in Heaven, He intercedes to the Father on our behalf. We are the only beings in all of God’s creation to whom He gave the power of speech. That alone should create in us a sense of the responsibility, and a recognition of the power, our words have. “I love you” can be the most beautiful phrase a husband or wife can hear. “What’s wrong with you”, “You’re stupid”, “ I hate you”. “ You should never have been born”, “You‘ll never amount to anything”, “This marriage was a big mistake” , “ I‘ve found someone else, and I don‘t love you anymore”. All these words can truly kill, steal and destroy. If God spoke this very world into existence using words and He created us in His image how can we not acknowledge the power of words? Satan used only words to steal the promise of eternity, dominion over the earth and sinlessness, from man. All he did was speak to Eve. He recognized the power of words, shouldn’t we be able to do at least that much. How many times have you said something and even before you were finished speaking did you wish you could reel the words back in, like a fishing line, because you knew you shouldn’t have spoken what you did. How many times have you said something in anger to another and then you saw, on their face, the hurt your words caused? And all the “I’m sorrries” in the world can’t erase what was said. How many times have you thought, “Why did I say that?” How many times have you prayed, “O God forgive me for the things I said to _______ today? I hurt them Lord. I could see it in their eyes and by the dejected way they looked. I felt justified in my anger and I wanted to let them know, and I did. They “deserved” the sharp edge of my tongue. But instead of feeling good about letting them know how I felt, I feel awful; please forgive me and the words of my mouth. And help me Lord to ask them for forgiveness too”. I don’t know if you have ever prayed that prayer, but I know I have and way too many times. Why does it take seeing the pain and hurt our words cause, time after time after time, at the cost of another, to bring us to repentance? Or maybe you don’t speak them out loud to the person but you think them and keep them in your heart and it changes how you feel about them, how you treat them. And then you get the opportunity to “share” those feelings or offenses with someone else, and you do. You tell them what that person said or did or how they made you angry and of course you paint yourself as the victim (you know you do, I sure do). Or just maybe you take yourself out of the picture completely and just relate the other person’s words or actions with just a “little” emphasis on how stupid or irresponsible or inconsiderate they were. And the unspoken part at the end of those sentences we use to relate they actions is (“but I would never do that”). God surely knew the importance of words because He left us His word. Jesus said “I am the Word”Let’s take a little trip together, if you don’t mind. Some words make you feel good about yourself, or safe, or loved, or happy. Close your eyes with me and remember and if these words bring a smile to your face, so much the better. Remember where you were or who you were with and how it made you feel when you heard these words. “You’re my best friend”, “You got an A”, “ Would you come to my birthday party?”, “You want to go to the prom?”, “Ladies and gentleman may I present the graduating Class of…..”, “You’re hired”, “Merry Christmas”, “Will you marry me?”, “ I now pronounce you man and wife”, “Guess what, you’re going to be a daddy”, “ Congratulations, it’s a boy (or a girl)”, “Mama or Dada”, “Great job”, “Thanks for all your help, I couldn’t have done it without you”, “Happy Birthday”, “ I love you!”, and then there are these incredible words, “Jesus loves you”, “He is Risen!”, “I go to prepare a place for you”, “You will be with me forever”.I love those words; they flood me with so many good memories. But, we have all heard words that hurt us, embarrass us, tear us down, make us feel so lost, alone and unloved, even unlovable. Words like “You’re a loser”, “Nobody likes you”, “Go away”, “Why can’t you be more like……”, “You’re only on the team because they had to pick everybody”, “You failed”, “I hope you don’t expect me to help you, to care about what happens to you, to go to bat for you, to be there for you”, “Are you kidding, I would never go out with you”, “You’re ugly, you’re fat, you’re skinny, you’re stupid, you’re a fool”. “Let’s just go our separate ways and never look back”, “I don’t love you, I don’t even like you”, “Do the world a favor and drop dead”. O, dear God forgive us for using this awesome, incredible power of speech to hurt someone else. For allowing satan to use our mouths and our words to kill, steal and destroy.
God has spoken three things into my Spirit since last year several times over. The first was “Remember”. I hope some of these words caused you to remember, in whatever way God chose. My prayer is that you remembered many, many good things, good times, good friends, and good experiences. For me, He also chose to cause me to remember all the times He has been with me, protecting me and loving me. And sometimes when I was very unlovable. The second was “The power of our words”. And again He caused me to remember. Some things I remembered about words I had spoken caused me to laugh but there were many times, too many times, that the words I remembered caused me to weep and pray that I had not done irreparable damage to another. And the third thing He has spoken into my Spirit is “Love with My heart”, just love. And I think that I finally figured out that if I do the third thing and love with the heart of God that the other two things, my words and my remembering will fall into place, and I pray, be pleasing to Him and bring me closer to Him. I pray that, through our relationship with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, that all our remembering will be joyous, our words be a sweet sound to His ear and we will love one another with the heart of God.
This is something my mom recently wrote and I want to share it with you, it's a bit long so be ready to read, but it was just to good not to share. I love you mom.
The power of words. “In God We Trust” and “One Nation under God” set forth the ideals, purpose and beliefs of the founding fathers in creating this nation.
“I do.” makes a lifelong commitment to love and honor another and creates a covenant relationship.
“Father forgive them” showed the greatest compassion and love the world has ever known.
“It is written” defeated (and still defeats) the devil.
“Let there be light” spoke the world into existence.
“Thy will be done” showed submission to the will of the Father. Our prayers open the floodgates of Heaven and send angels out to do warfare on our behalf. They also do the work of satan, to kill, steal and destroy. God has shown us the tremendous power that our words have and yet we still speak carelessly and do irreparable damage with our mouths. We use curse words to devalue women and compare them to dogs, we take God’s name in vain and use it to damn another one of His children or something He created. We use words to cry out to God and plead for His intervention and then to express our anger at Him when we don’t get our way. Words can lift up, show love, sympathy, praise, compassion and grace or they humiliate, tear down, hurt, and destroy. Jesus used His words to teach, to instruct, to pray, to defeat the devil, to show love, compassion, forgiveness, humility and obedience to the Father. He used words to heal the sick, give sight to the blind, make the lame walk and raise the dead. He used words to take on the sins of the world, our sins, yours and mine, and to cry out to the Father that His purpose on earth was complete,
“It is finished”. And now in Heaven, He intercedes to the Father on our behalf. We are the only beings in all of God’s creation to whom He gave the power of speech. That alone should create in us a sense of the responsibility, and a recognition of the power, our words have. “I love you” can be the most beautiful phrase a husband or wife can hear. “What’s wrong with you”, “You’re stupid”, “ I hate you”. “ You should never have been born”, “You‘ll never amount to anything”, “This marriage was a big mistake” , “ I‘ve found someone else, and I don‘t love you anymore”. All these words can truly kill, steal and destroy. If God spoke this very world into existence using words and He created us in His image how can we not acknowledge the power of words? Satan used only words to steal the promise of eternity, dominion over the earth and sinlessness, from man. All he did was speak to Eve. He recognized the power of words, shouldn’t we be able to do at least that much. How many times have you said something and even before you were finished speaking did you wish you could reel the words back in, like a fishing line, because you knew you shouldn’t have spoken what you did. How many times have you said something in anger to another and then you saw, on their face, the hurt your words caused? And all the “I’m sorrries” in the world can’t erase what was said. How many times have you thought, “Why did I say that?” How many times have you prayed, “O God forgive me for the things I said to _______ today? I hurt them Lord. I could see it in their eyes and by the dejected way they looked. I felt justified in my anger and I wanted to let them know, and I did. They “deserved” the sharp edge of my tongue. But instead of feeling good about letting them know how I felt, I feel awful; please forgive me and the words of my mouth. And help me Lord to ask them for forgiveness too”. I don’t know if you have ever prayed that prayer, but I know I have and way too many times. Why does it take seeing the pain and hurt our words cause, time after time after time, at the cost of another, to bring us to repentance? Or maybe you don’t speak them out loud to the person but you think them and keep them in your heart and it changes how you feel about them, how you treat them. And then you get the opportunity to “share” those feelings or offenses with someone else, and you do. You tell them what that person said or did or how they made you angry and of course you paint yourself as the victim (you know you do, I sure do). Or just maybe you take yourself out of the picture completely and just relate the other person’s words or actions with just a “little” emphasis on how stupid or irresponsible or inconsiderate they were. And the unspoken part at the end of those sentences we use to relate they actions is (“but I would never do that”). God surely knew the importance of words because He left us His word. Jesus said “I am the Word”Let’s take a little trip together, if you don’t mind. Some words make you feel good about yourself, or safe, or loved, or happy. Close your eyes with me and remember and if these words bring a smile to your face, so much the better. Remember where you were or who you were with and how it made you feel when you heard these words. “You’re my best friend”, “You got an A”, “ Would you come to my birthday party?”, “You want to go to the prom?”, “Ladies and gentleman may I present the graduating Class of…..”, “You’re hired”, “Merry Christmas”, “Will you marry me?”, “ I now pronounce you man and wife”, “Guess what, you’re going to be a daddy”, “ Congratulations, it’s a boy (or a girl)”, “Mama or Dada”, “Great job”, “Thanks for all your help, I couldn’t have done it without you”, “Happy Birthday”, “ I love you!”, and then there are these incredible words, “Jesus loves you”, “He is Risen!”, “I go to prepare a place for you”, “You will be with me forever”.I love those words; they flood me with so many good memories. But, we have all heard words that hurt us, embarrass us, tear us down, make us feel so lost, alone and unloved, even unlovable. Words like “You’re a loser”, “Nobody likes you”, “Go away”, “Why can’t you be more like……”, “You’re only on the team because they had to pick everybody”, “You failed”, “I hope you don’t expect me to help you, to care about what happens to you, to go to bat for you, to be there for you”, “Are you kidding, I would never go out with you”, “You’re ugly, you’re fat, you’re skinny, you’re stupid, you’re a fool”. “Let’s just go our separate ways and never look back”, “I don’t love you, I don’t even like you”, “Do the world a favor and drop dead”. O, dear God forgive us for using this awesome, incredible power of speech to hurt someone else. For allowing satan to use our mouths and our words to kill, steal and destroy.
God has spoken three things into my Spirit since last year several times over. The first was “Remember”. I hope some of these words caused you to remember, in whatever way God chose. My prayer is that you remembered many, many good things, good times, good friends, and good experiences. For me, He also chose to cause me to remember all the times He has been with me, protecting me and loving me. And sometimes when I was very unlovable. The second was “The power of our words”. And again He caused me to remember. Some things I remembered about words I had spoken caused me to laugh but there were many times, too many times, that the words I remembered caused me to weep and pray that I had not done irreparable damage to another. And the third thing He has spoken into my Spirit is “Love with My heart”, just love. And I think that I finally figured out that if I do the third thing and love with the heart of God that the other two things, my words and my remembering will fall into place, and I pray, be pleasing to Him and bring me closer to Him. I pray that, through our relationship with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, that all our remembering will be joyous, our words be a sweet sound to His ear and we will love one another with the heart of God.
As I am preparing for church I stopped in and read this... and it spoke to my heart. The Book of James talks about taming the tongue. Thank you for sharing, Jenny.
ReplyDeleteBlessings, L