I don’t know how you are but I appreciate when God corrects me. The Bible says ‘those he loves he chastens’ so let’s just say that I know without a doubt that God loves me because he often chastens me.
Many people become condemned when God chastens and frankly, I used to feel the same way when I was first born again over the years I have learned that God is not mad at me, he simply wants me to be the best I can be. He wants me to be like Jesus and like any good and caring father, he corrects me.
In the past, when I would be corrected by the Lord I fought condemnation and it took much longer for change to come. These days, when he corrects me I can laugh at myself and change immediately. I correct what needs correcting, adjust what needs adjusting and go on…I don’t miss a beat.
This morning I was driving out of town to an appointment and I was pondering a certain group of scriptures. Suddenly the revelation of that scripture came to me. It was awesome and I had to tell someone. I called my friend, Deborah. I said ‘what are you doing?’ She said ‘I was pondering.’ I asked her what she was pondering and she said ‘the words of my mouth.’ I burst out laughing. The hardest thing to tame is our tongue. The bible says that it is what directs our ship, it literally moves us in one direction or another and I could tell that her words had moved her in a direction she didn’t want to go.
She began to share what had happened. She said ‘I have cursed my vehicle until it finally died, and as it sat on the side of the road God revealed to me what had happened and I burst out laughing.’ She went on to tell me how she had literally spoken words of curse over her vehicle and it finally laid down under the words of the curses she was speaking over it.
Life and death are in the power of the tongue. Every word you speak…every word you speak…is producing something…either life or death. For Deborah, the words she was speaking over her vehicle had produced death. When she finished sharing her story I said ‘bless your heart.’ She replied ‘from now on, please don’t bless my heart, bless my mouth.’
I said to Deborah ‘you are eating fruit this morning…the fruit of your lips, how did it taste?’ We laughed but we both got it. We understood what God was showing us. We will eat the fruit of our lips, either good or bad, either blessing or curse, the choice is up to us.
Deuteronomy 11:26 says God has set before us life and death, we choose. Proverbs says clearly that we will eat the fruit of our lips. The book of Matthew says we are justified or condemned by ONE THING – the words of our mouth. Words that come out of our mouth are important. More than that, they are producing something every single time.
Friends, we have to learn this, our words are guiding our life. Our words are steering where we are going – please watch what comes out of your mouth. God created the world with words and you are doing the exact same thing; what kind of world do you want.
Another thing God showed me during our conversation was this; when we begin to see increase in the world, when we begin to see increase in revelation, increase in finances, increase in God’s presence, as we talked about yesterday, we will also see increase in other things. We will see an increase in the speed of the manifestation of the words of our mouth…good or bad.
That can be good or it can be scary. If you are speaking good words, you will see those good things come to pass at a quicker rate. However, if you are speaking negative things, like she was doing about her vehicle, you will see those things come to pass quicker as well.
It is a wonderful time we are in and it is a humbling time we are in. We can’t take these things lightly. We will eat the fruit of our lips. That’s not the question. The only question is will that fruit taste sweet like honey or will it be bitter with the curse? It’s up to you. And it is up to me. Me? I am going to DAILY set a guard over my tongue and speak only words of blessing – I am going to make sure my ship heads the right direction…straight into the promises of God.
