Monday, September 5, 2016

The Journey of a Thousand Words




Words.  They're everywhere.  We hear them everyday; some are disproving and some are approving.  Nevertheless, every word released in the atmosphere has to land somewhere.  It is given life by the person who's spoken it, but it can be cancelled out or received by the person it was spoken for or against.  We get to decide whether someone's words about us successfully land in our hearts or if they fall by the wayside.  We have the power and authority to override words.

Louann Brizendine, a researcher from the University of California, conducted a study to see how many words the average person spoke each day.  She concluded that women speak an average of 20,000 words a day, whereas, the average man only speaks 7,000 words a day.  There are other researchers out who argue that these claims have never been validated, but as a woman, I think it's safe to say that women do talk remarkably more than men (on average).  Therefore, with so many words being released into the atmosphere, can you imagine how many weapons are released every day?  Can you imagine how many of them have been released against you in your lifetime?  Think of it this way.  According to reference.com, there are a total of 3.52 billion women in this world.  If each woman speaks 20,000 words a day, that would mean that over seven quadrillion words are spoken a day by women alone and only 30 percent of them are Christian. 

Sadly enough, many of the evil words released into the atmosphere are from people who claim to be Christian.  Now, of course we know that no one is perfect, but we must always remember that we are representatives of Christ; we are ambassadors of the Kingdom of God, and as such, we are either growing the Kingdom or repelling people from it.  The words we choose are all representations or misrepresentations of the one we claim to represent.  Additionally, the words you choose not only represent the kingdom language you speak; whether that language is from Heaven or Hell, but it also represents how long you've been speaking it.  New believers oftentimes have what can best be described as the equivalent of an accent, meaning, they don't speak Kingdom fluently.  They are still learning the language of Heaven, but anytime you come across a seasoned believer who has an accent, it is clear that the person in question is still actively residing in darkness. 

I was at Walmart the other day and I heard a mother mercilessly reprimanding her teenage daughter.  The girl had simply forgotten to get something that her mother told her to grab because she was excitedly trying to tell her mother about something she'd witnessed.  The mother didn't care to hear what her daughter was saying, so she yelled at her to go and get whatsoever it was that she was supposed to be getting.  The young lady was polite about it and rushed off to get whatever her mother told her to get.  I could tell that she was eager to please her.  As she darted off onto another aisle, the mother then yelled out to her that she was "stupid."  The mother was pushing a cart with a toddler in it who couldn't be any older than three and the toddler repeated his mother's words.  She then proudly repeated what she'd said about her daughter to the toddler.  She said, "Yep, she's just stupid."  I was disgusted.  I wanted so much to stop the daughter and tell her that she was not stupid, but I knew that it wouldn't be a wise move.  I knew that I needed to pray for her because she was clearly the victim of a strategic demonic attack that the enemy was carrying out through her mother.  What's even sadder is this is common in today's society.  It was disheartening to think about the amount of curses her mother has spoken over her in her life and the amount she speaks over her daily.  I thought to myself that the young lady would have to go through deliverance from a lot of spirits and, of course, one of them would be that oh-so-infamous and oh-so-common spirit of rejection.  It was disheartening watching her try to gain her mother's approval, only to be ignored and cursed at.

As much as I wanted to intervene, wisdom has taught me that the battleground is not between flesh; I could've easily confronted the mother (in love), but chances are, we wouldn't have ended up having a nice warm and civilized conversation over brunch.  The mother was clearly used to confrontation and any engagement with her would have ended in a senseless brawl.  My weapon of choice is prayer, and of course, if God grants me the honor and the opportunity to minister to that mother and the daughter someday, I will happily accept it.  Everyone has his or her own journey, and unfortunately, the journeys for many start with them facing opposition from the very people who birthed and fed them.  It's hard when the people who are supposed to be protecting you are the ones you need to be protected from.

I want you to imagine that your life is a long road that seems to be without ends.  You know where you're headed and you even know a few stops you'll make, but ultimately, you don't know what cities you'll have to make pit stops in, where you'll have to lodge occasionally, how long you'll have to lodge there and who you'll pick up along the way.  All you know for sure is that you're going somewhere and the road you're on can get bumpy at times.

Imagine that standing on this side of the road that we call life, there are many familiar and not-so familiar faces yelling at you as you pass by.  Some even step onto the road in their attempts to stop you or slow you down.  Some of the people are cheering you on, but others are verbally lashing out at you as you approach, arrive at and pass by the area that they are in.  What's amazing is that you can't always tell who's cheering you on versus who's cursing at you.  With the windows up and the sounds of life in your ear, the only thing you can do is observe some of the faces as you pass by.  It is obvious that many are yelling and trying to get your attention, but you have to keep moving forward because there are no brakes in life's vehicle.  You are going to move into tomorrow (if you keep on living) whether you're ready for it or not.  As time goes on, you will come to discover that many of the people you thought were cheering for you were actually mocking and cursing at you, whereas, many of the people you thought were ridiculing you were actually cheering you on.  In life, we are bombarded with thousands of words each day, but we don't have the time or the energy to address each one.  We have to remain prayerful and we have to be careful when choosing the words that we are going to release into the atmosphere.

There is a war going on.  It is a war of words, but here's the thing: we are either contributing to the health and prosperity of others (and ourselves) or we are on the wrong side of the war, allowing the enemy to hurl us at God's Word and at His people.  God's Word will stand; it will not, has never and cannot return to Him void.  Additionally, God's people have already overcome the enemy by the blood of the Lamb and the power of their testimony.  This means that if we allow the enemy to use us and our ability to speak life, we are, in the same, allowing ourselves to be used as suicide bombers.  The problem with this is that if we let the enemy use us, before we detonate, we'll catch up with the person that we were assigned to "take out."  That person will then turn around and reveal himself or herself just seconds before we complete our (demonic) assignments.  It is in that moment that the truth will shatter our realities.  As much as the enemy likes to use people against each other, ultimately, each person's mission is completed when they take out themselves!

When I stop and consider the many words that have been hurled at me over the course of my life, I can honestly say that if those words were to become visible darts, I would be able to build a fence with them that spans a football stadium.  We could even use the leftover darts to build a few arks.  Nevertheless, I'm thankful for the path that God has assigned me to travel because it was at rock bottom that I discovered how powerless opinions are.  It was during my pit-experiences that I discovered how meaningless demonically formed words are.  In layman's terms, those words have no substance; they are empty and without an earthly master.  What does this mean?  The people who speak evil against you are not the masters of the words they speak; they are the puppets of the one who ordered them to speak!  Therefore, even though the speakers were being mastered by the enemy, their words were without a master because they were illegal, meaning, they had (and have) no legal authority against a child of God!  Think of it this way.  A city patrolman only has power in the city that he or she is assigned to patrol.  Should that patrolman go to another city, he or she would have no legal authority to arrest or detain anyone as an officer of the law.  Of course, just like any other citizen, the officer could make a citizen's arrest in another jurisdiction, but citizen's arrests are not only hard to validate, but they also vary state by state.  An officer's absolute power is confined to the city he or she has sworn to protect and serve.  The same goes with words.  An unsaved person can successfully throw darts at another unsaved person, but a saved or unsaved person's words against another human being become illegal when they go against what God has already declared over that person!  This means that we have the legal authority to cancel out every ungodly word spoken against us because those words have no jurisdiction in us UNLESS we backslide and enter rebellion.  God's got us covered... literally!

When a baby is born into this world, believe it or not, that child has already been spoken against by someone somewhere.  The enemy begins forming darts to throw at us at the very mention of our existences or impending existences!  Sometimes the words that were spoken against us when we were still in the womb came from terrified parents who didn't think they could handle having a child or having another child.  Maybe they were from frustrated grandparents who didn't like the people who their sons or daughters had conceived children with.  In some cases, those words came from our parents' friends simply because they felt threatened by our existences.  Regardless of what was said and who said it, there are weapons being formed against us and thrown at us daily and that's why we need to stay submitted to the Word of God.  The Word is our covering and we need to stay under it so that we can confidently say, "No weapon formed against me shall prosper and every tongue that rises up against me in judgment, I condemn!"  Sadly enough, many people in the church don't have the church in them!  They are pinned to the wall with countless darts, but they are oblivious to their plights.  Because of this, they quote scriptures, but they don't stand on the Word.

Each day of your life represents a journey of a thousand words, but again, where you stand in this war will determine how you live and where you spend eternity.  Sure, people will talk about you; they will offend you, and they will say things that you have written off as "stupid," nevertheless, you have to be careful that you don't release any words that you don't want to receive in return.  Words are like boomerangs; they will always find their way back to the person or people who gave them life.  That's why it's necessary to forgive (and to do it quickly).  Forgiveness represents the ability to successfully move forward in life, but unforgiveness represents being motionless, stuck, comatose or without advancement.  It's like getting stranded in a lawless town where you have plenty of enemies, but no jurisdiction!

Unforgiveness represents a mountain.  You have to get over what others have said and are saying about you if you ever want to go to the next level!  As a matter of fact, you have to get over words that have not yet been spoken so that you don't delay your journey trying to address the folks on the side of the road!  Their vehicles stopped moving long ago and that's why they are trying to stop you!  To get past them, you must first get past yourself because you represent the greatest obstacle that will ever step in your way.  This means that you have to humble yourself to even be qualified for the opportunity to confront a mountain.  Some people spend their entire lives arguing with empty anthills simply because they have allowed themselves to become the mountains that the enemy uses to get in other folks' way.  They are repeatedly overcome and reduced to the size of an ant (spiritually speaking), so to them, an anthill is a mountain!  People like that complain about everything because somewhere along the way, their life's vehicle got stalled and they have to stand by helplessly and watch some of the people they once burped and babysat drive past them.  And that's why they yell at you when you past them by.

On your journey, it's not important to know what the people are saying as you pass them; what is important is that you pass them by!  Too many folks get stuck trying to address the folks on the side of the road!  You need to make sure that you know what God said about you and you can clearly hear His voice; that way, the thundering sound of His mighty voice will overpower the powerless whimpering of mankind's many voices.  People are going to talk and all you can do about it is let them.  To stop them, you must first stop to address them and that's when your vehicle will stall!  Howbeit, when you masterfully move about life outside of the constraints of people bondage, success will work to have you, but you won't have to work to have it.

Every word that is formed against you represents an opportunity for you to take authority over that word and then speak what God has said over your life.  Every time you cancel out a word, you then replace it with better words.  This means that ungodly speech can be made to work for you if you take authority over the words that are released.  Every word can be made to serve you because whatever you take authority over, you can command!  This means that the more people who speak against you, the more opportunities you'll have to create a sub-kingdom where the billions of words that you've taken authority over are waiting around for your next command!  Now, if you're wise, you will speak what God has spoken, thus, making your slice of Heaven, or better yet, your kingdom here on earth as the Kingdom of Heaven!  Understand this: we are all governors of our lives, but Jesus Christ is Lord!  If we are righteous governors, we will cause everything sent our way to honor God.  God has given us the power to build kingdoms on earth, but we first need to learn to govern our own tongues, otherwise, we'll create what can best be described as brothels with forked-tongued prostitutes who occasionally speak scriptures.  I know it's harsh, but sometimes, the hard truth has enough force in it to deliver us from our religious bubbles.  We can't be both representatives of light and darkness.

Take the time today to repent for all of your sins, and then, take authority over every evil word spoken against you.  If you don't understand this concept, think of it this way.  In the biblical days, one kingdom would attack and overtake another one.  In the cases where they didn't kill all of the citizens of the kingdom they'd overtaken, they took those people into slavery and made them serve them!  Cancel every word sent out against you and take authority over them.  When you cancel a word, it has to do opposite of what it was sent to do! 
2 Corinthians 10:5 (Berean Study Bible): We tear down arguments, and every presumption set up against the knowledge of God; and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

Life and death are in the power of the tongue.  Use your tongue to speak at least a thousand blessings every day.  Instead of complaining, murmuring, cursing, gossiping and slandering others, try releasing blessings.  One thing I've noticed is that people who gossip, complain and curse a lot always find themselves living lives worth complaining about!  This means that they attract catastrophe because they keep releasing it!  Understand the power of the tongue that's in your mouth.  It isn't just some small organ that helps you speak and taste food; it is the most powerful organ (and weapon) you have!  The question is: Are you the weapon formed against you that's trying to prosper and if so, how are you going to overcome yourself?

1 comment:

  1. This is awesome,thank you so much for this!!

    ReplyDelete