In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. (Genesis 1:1-3)
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. (John 1:1-3)
We live in a voice-activated world. It was created by the voice of God, by his word being spoken, and it is maintained by the power of his word.
The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. (Hebrews 1:3a)
God has built into the world that words have power. As we look through scripture, we see the world responding to the power of the spoken word. Moses was told by God to speak to the rock (Numbers 20:8), Jesus told us we could speak to mountains and they would move (Matthew 17:20) and he demonstrated the power of words in many ways. He stilled a storm with a stern rebuke to wind and waves (Mark 4:39), he healed the sick, sometimes when he was nowhere near them, like the centurion’s servant (Matthew 8); and he commanded demons to leave, and they did (Mark 5). Equally, the disciples rejoiced because demons submitted to them, in the name of Jesus (Luke 10). In Acts 13, Elymas is blinded as a result of Paul’s words and in Acts 5 Peter declares Sapphira will die, and she does, and in Acts 9 he speaks, and Tabitha comes back to life.
As we speak things happen. As we speak the word of God, under the influence of his Spirit – angels leap into action to obey his word.
Praise the Lord, you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, who obey his word. (Psalms 103:20)
It is my belief that there are also demons poised, equally ready to leap into action as we come into agreement with, and speak out, what the enemy would like to do.
Mark 11:21 shows us that our words have the power to bless or curse depending on what we say. Jesus cursed the fig tree and it withered. James 3 unpacks the capacity for our tongues to cause great evil. So, what is coming out of our mouths and is it bringing life or death, not only to those around us but to ourselves?
The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit. (Proverbs 18:21)
We get to “eat” what we are saying over our lives, over other people’s lives, over our nation, our days, our leaders, so very many things. I have often been struck by the thought that we so often casually make the craziest declarations over things in our lives.
“The fun and games will start now he has turned two.”
“The weather is going to be awful tomorrow.”
“She’s going to be a right little madam!”
“We’d never be able to afford one.”
“Today’s going to be a long day.”
“I always mess things up.”
This reminds me of what I think is a scary verse.
And I tell you this, you must give an account on judgment day for every idle word you speak. (Matthew 12:36).
So many of our words are uttered carelessly without really thinking about what we are saying, what we are declaring, because we don’t have any idea of the importance of our words and the power of agreement – either with God’s word or with the enemy. I wonder how often our words agree with the enemy’s plans rather than God’s.
The word for ‘idle’ in this verse can also be translated “barren” which adds to the concept of words bringing life, or not.
Without words, we cannot give expression to our thoughts, we cannot communicate well, as anyone who has tried to communicate in a country where they don’t speak the language will tell you. Pictures can help but they don’t go far enough to have effective communication. Maybe this is why the Passion Translation uses “the Living Expression” in verse 1.
In the beginning the Living Expression was already there. And the Living Expression was with God, yet fully God. (John 1:1)
Jesus IS the Word of God in the flesh, (verse 14). He is the embodiment of what God wants to say, he IS the message. The bible tells us, here and in Colossians 1, that by him and through him all things were created and are sustained. The Word is life since without him nothing was created. God’s Word has, and is, the power to create, to bring life.
I am fascinated by something that further brings out this life-giving power of words, specifically the Word of God. In the parable of the sower in Matthew 13, Jesus equates the seed with the message of the kingdom, with the word of God. Galatians 3:16 makes it clear that Jesus is the seed of Abraham that was promised. In both these passages, the word used for seed originally is “sperma” from which we get our word “sperm” which is an essential part of the reproductive process for us, bringing forth life. Jesus is essential for bringing forth life, which could just be why he told us that he IS the life (John 14:6). [As an aside, I believe that he IS the supernatural sperm that fertilised the egg in Mary to create the baby born in Bethlehem!]
What is exciting is that life-giving power has not diminished. The Word of God always accomplishes what he planned for it (Isaiah 55:11), and since we are told in Hebrews 4:12 the word of God is alive and active then it is safe to assume that IF we are working in partnership with Holy Spirit, and speaking what God commands us to speak, declaring his truth and not the enemy’s lies, agreeing with God and proclaiming life and not death, then that creative, life-giving power is still available to us today.
We too can command mountains to be removed into the sea … what mountains need to shift in your life today? We can command the weather and still storms, in the natural and in the spirt realm. Are you or any of your loved ones experiencing a storm? Speak peace to it. Jesus is the Prince of Peace. When you speak God’s shalom, his peace, into a situation, you are in effect “speaking Jesus”. Is anxiety or stress filling your household? Command it to go and release peace into the atmosphere. Of course, your language, the narrative you are using, needs to be realigned with the shift in atmosphere you are speaking into being. It is no good declaring God’s peace in a situation and then continuing to speak out your worries and declarations of doom and gloom. I read recently that we give the angels whiplash when we do that! We declare God’s truth one minute, so they get ready to act in accordance with his word and then in the next breath we undo it with our negative words.
God has chosen to work in partnership with mankind on the earth. He has given us dominion over the earth (Genesis 1:28) and chooses to limit his capacity to working through us. Amos 3:7 says that God does nothing unless he reveals his plans to his prophets. Just like Jesus came to be God’s message to us, God’s prophets revealed God’s message to his people, sometimes embodying the message. Since Pentecost, he has poured out his Spirit on us all and 1 Corinthians 14:31 reminds us that “all may prophesy” although there are still prophets whose job it is to reproduce that capacity within the church so we can declare and decree God’s purposes in the earth.
Job 22:21-28 tells us that, if we submit to God’s ways and delight ourselves in him, we will be able to decree and declare a thing and it will be established. So, what are you saying? What are you decreeing and declaring? God’s words have the same power in your mouth, under the anointing of Holy Spirit, as they do in Jesus’s mouth. That is some power that he has put at our disposal. What needs to be established in your life, in your family, in the earth?
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