Bill Johnson - The Power of Your Words (What You Say Will Be Your Next Meal)
That tool, which is so powerful and so profound to bring life, can also bring death. Sometimes, the struggles we face in life result from our having to eat the words we said a week ago or a month ago. Speak knowing you’re about to have a meal. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Please be seated. Yeah, there we go. Keep it up high; I can’t see you; you know it’s my shield. Well, good evening! Worship school has been so fun. I don’t always get to come to more than one or two sessions because I tend to travel during this season, and this year, I decided not to travel. So, I get to be here for a whole bunch of sessions. It has been a lot of fun just sitting in the room with all of you.
I can tell if people are judgmental just by looking at them. Oh, so you don’t say! This is a poster found in a church in France, translated obviously. «When you enter this church, it may be possible that you hear the call of God. However, it is unlikely that He will call you on your cell phone.» Thank you for turning off your phones! If you want to talk to God, enter, choose a quiet place, and talk to Him. If you want to see Him, send a text to Him while you’re driving. Just one more. I’ve opened a restaurant called «Peace and Quiet.» Kids' meals are only $150.
Oh well, I’m trying. God is infinite; everything He made is finite, limited, restricted, and has boundaries. He alone has no boundaries. If He had a boundary, it would be the boundary of the inability to do evil. He is intensely good, intensely righteous, and intensely holy. Everything He does comes from who He is; He never has to pretend anything. He never has to bolster Himself up to become courageous; He is absolutely raw, pure faith. Scripture says that we are saved by grace through faith, and that referring to faith is not of ourselves; it’s not born of us; it’s a gift from God. We believe because He gave us the ability to believe, and He called us by name and created in us the ability to respond. Everything is initiated by Him; none of it comes from us.
We have responsibility; we have the responsibility to respond, but He alone lives in this realm. If you can imagine everything that exists—the universe and the billions of planets, along with the creatures in the unseen realm that are described in Ezekiel and Revelation—everything He has made has limitations. Nothing is able to say that anything is possible for them; only God can say that anything is possible for Him. And then He made us, and He made us in His likeness, in His image.
I look forward to heaven for many reasons, but one reason is the discovery of what it means to actually be made in His image, in His likeness. Nothing else in creation was made in His likeness—only mankind, humanity. So, here we have a God for whom nothing is impossible. Everything else is finite. He makes us in His image and then gives us access to something that only He enjoys, that realm where nothing is impossible. He gives us access to it and says nothing is impossible for those who believe.
Wow! So, those made in His image are actually invited to not be independent of Him because we have nothing apart from Him, right? There is no self-will that can enter the picture. Every advancement we make in our walk with Christ comes through surrender; everything comes through surrender. None of it is contrived in and of ourselves; none of it is self-motivation. It is literally all responding to His idea, to His plan, His word, His Spirit, His presence, and His life. He invites us into this mysterious relationship called co-laboring in scripture. And, God, I mean, this is almost embarrassing to say because it’s so obvious: God can do everything better than we can. Right? Anyone who disagrees with that is just wrong! He can obviously heal the sick better; He can preach better; He can evangelize better; He can prophesy better. Everything He can do better than we can.
But He has chosen not to do it Himself. Even when He took on flesh and came to Earth, He did it with the limitations of a human being, dependent on God. So, even then, He was not trying to display what He could do. In the Old Testament, we see Him reveal what He can do: water comes out of a rock, manna appears on the ground every day, the Red Sea parts—extraordinary miracles. I think the greatest miracle in the Old Testament is the valley of dry bones. It’s a valley of a dead army, and the bones rattle and come together into place, and then God breathes over them, and flesh forms, organs form, and life comes back into them, and they are raised up as an army. That’s—I want the video on that one! When I get there, I want to see that one; that’s just bizarre.
So, the Old Testament reveals what God can do, but in the New Testament, the revelation wasn’t so much what God could do. Obviously, it all goes back to Him, but the point was the revelation of the New Testament was to show us what one person could do that was rightly related to God—one who had no sin, and was completely empowered by the Holy Spirit. The two qualifiers that enable a person to step into that unlimited realm of God Himself—not that we become God, but that we become so yielded and surrendered that He can use us as He used His Son, Jesus. The point is Jesus only did what He saw the Father do; He only said what He heard the Father say. Jesus would say, «If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.»
Hebrews 1:1 says that Jesus is the exact representation of His nature. He actually radiates from the Father; what we see in Jesus is the radiance of the Father. When Jesus took on flesh, it was to illustrate to us what could be possible. Jesus is called the Christ. «Jesus Christ,» where «Christ» is not His last name. It’s not like «Jesus Johnson» or something; it’s a title in the kingdom of God. Titles point to experiences; titles point to happenings. So, when it says «Jesus Christ"—the anointed one—it’s referring specifically to the fact that He’s been smeared with the Holy Spirit. The word «anointing» means «to smear.»
So here’s Jesus, the one completely engulfed in and covered by the Holy Spirit of God. The dove that rested on His shoulder remained; He never departed. Doves are nervous, flighty birds, easily spooked, and yet Jesus walked in such a way that there was never a compromise or a threat to the presence of God upon Him. He carried and modeled that well to illustrate something for us; He didn’t just do that. I’ve already made the statement, so forgive me for repeating it. He wasn’t just trying to show us what God could do. Obviously, everything comes from Him, but He was trying to illustrate what could happen to a person who surrendered and obeyed. Many people surrender in the fact that they give up, but they don’t respond by obeying, by taking risks, by being courageous.
So in other words, «I give up; you are right; I’m wrong; I confess my sin.» Then there’s supposed to be something we put on called this thing of courage and faith, where we work to represent Him accurately and well. Jesus only said what He heard the Father say. Imagine with me for a moment that we are standing in Jerusalem; Jesus is here, talking, and He begins to speak, calling out a condition that is to be healed, or speaking a word into a family that’s in trouble, or whatever it might be. We can feel the life from every word.
The one thing that was so different about Jesus, as Chris talked about this morning when He read in the synagogue from Isaiah 61, is that there had been 400 years of silence from Heaven to Earth. I don’t understand this, but it talks about the 400 years of silence until John the Baptist and Jesus. There were no prophets, no prophecies, no dreams, no visions—nothing. Everything was shut down for 400 years. So imagine you’re going through the routine just from raw discipline; you know it’s right, and you do it because it’s right, but there’s not this overwhelming sense of the Spirit of God upon them.
They’ve just committed themselves. They recognized somehow in their heart of hearts that the law of God was true, and they embraced it as their responsibility and privilege in life. But they’d never had a divine encounter; it just hadn’t happened in 400 years. So we’ve got ten generations of experience, and then Jesus stands to read in the synagogue on that one day; it’s in Luke chapter 4, and he begins to read out of Isaiah 61: «The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; He has anointed me to bring release to captives, recovery of sight to the blind,» and He goes through this scripture.
But here’s what I want you to realize: when Jesus spoke, He spoke what the Father was saying, and when He spoke what the Father was saying, the Spirit of God, the word of God became presence. Jesus gave us insight to this in John chapter 6 when He said, «My words to you are spirit, and they are life.» My words to you become spirit, and that spirit gives life.
Alright, so we’re back in the synagogue; we’ve never had a vision, a dream; we’ve never sensed the presence of God. We don’t know anyone who has because it’s been 400 years of silence. Jesus stands up and says, «The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because He has anointed me.» But now, something’s happening. Every word He speaks becomes present, and everyone in the room is stunned by what they are feeling.
I’m trying not to spend a lot of time there, but I just opened a can of worms, so I’ll have to take the worms out, fish with them, and then do something else! I don’t know; we’ll see if I can recover from this. But it’s a bizarre situation because He’s talking to a city that is about to reject Him. It says He read this passage, closed the book, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. All the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on Him, and He said, «Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.»
Then it says, and my translation has this a bit clearer; I’ve tried to do my research on verse 22. It says, «So they all bore witness to Him.» Now, we know the end of the story; this is His hometown that rejected Him, but it didn’t start that way. He reads presence released and says they all bore witness. What does that mean? Everyone in the synagogue was impacted in their hearts when they realized this is Him. They’ve been raised from childhood to anticipate and pray for the coming Messiah. They all bore witness; they all had something inside them they couldn’t explain, but there was something going on within them that said, «Wait a minute, this is different than anything I’ve ever experienced before.»
They all bore witness to Him, and they marveled at the gracious words coming out of His mouth. So here they are, first of all, deeply impacted by presence, and now their brains are on hyper-speed as they are stunned by the grace-filled words coming out of His mouth. What is grace? Grace is the enablement of God; it is favor, but it is favor that enables; it’s the enabling favor and presence of God.
So, here He’s reading, and in their hearts, they are going, «This is Him,» and then they begin to feel empowered. Why are they alive? Are you with me? Are you getting this picture? He’s reading; nothing has happened like this for 400 years. He’s reading; life goes into the room. People are stirred in their heart of hearts; their faith is marveled at, pondering, meditating on the grace-filled words, the empowering words that are coming out of His mouth.
And then someone said, «Isn’t this Joseph’s son?» You can imagine the entire crowd at that moment; they’re recognizing in their hearts the fact they’ve just heard the voice of the Messiah, and then somebody says, «Yeah, but isn’t this Joseph’s son?» You can just see them go, «Of course it is! What was I thinking? So glad you brought that up because you won’t believe what I was just thinking. I was actually just—I’m embarrassed to say it—but I was thinking this could be the Messiah, but obviously, this is Joseph’s son.»
What was I thinking? And they reasoned themselves out of a place of faith that could have made that city Jesus’s home base for His miracle ministry that would go all over the known world. And it’s from there it says Jesus could do no mighty works there except lay His hands on a few sick people and heal them.
The next time you think your anointing is being shut down by your environment, just remember that verse: the unbelief that took place in that city couldn’t shut down what Jesus carried because He still carried enough to lay His hands on a few sick people and release healing to them. What couldn’t happen with that unbelief was the corporate anointing where there’s exponential increase. So good! The corporate anointing was shut down because of corporate unbelief, but personal faith still brings healing and deliverance. I’m sure the few handful of people that were healed were thankful that He was still able to minister to them in spite of the atmosphere of the crowd. Come on, Jesus Christ! Jesus, the one anointed of the Holy Spirit.
When Jesus died, the scripture says that had Satan known what was about to happen, he never would have crucified Jesus. Now, Satan did not take Jesus’s life; no, Jesus laid it down. Yes, no one took His life; the Roman soldiers, none of them took His life, right? He had at His disposal legions of angels to come to assist Him, and Peter. He laid His life down. When He laid His life down and rose from the grave, the Bible says the Holy Spirit is the one who raised Jesus from the dead. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of resurrection. When the Holy Spirit raised Him from the dead, it made it possible for people to be born again by the same Spirit that raised Him from the dead.
I don’t know if you’re getting a picture of what this means. It means that this same anointing that Jesus walked in is now made available to everyone who believes. It was never meant to just be fire insurance to keep us from hell; it was always designed to be the invitation to co-labor and recognize Jesus well for Jesus to receive what He paid for through courage, through radical obedience to relationship with Him, to see these things happen in the Earth.
Now, here’s what I want to do. Do you have your Bibles? Anyone have a Bible? Let me see them—hold your Bibles up. Oh good, look at all those Bibles! That’s awesome! How many of you have it electronically? Hold that up; that’s legal; it’s legal!
Alright, I’ve got so many I want to share with you, quite a few verses. We’ll see how much time we have. First, open with me; we’re going to start with Psalms 33. Start there, and of course, as always, we want to welcome and bless and encourage our online family. We’re so thankful that you guys join us; it’s an unexpected part of our life that we enjoy so much. When I travel around the world, I get to meet so many of you. I love it, love it, love it!
Alright, you guys ready? Got your gospel track shoes on because we’re going to cover a lot of verses? You ready? Yes! Where did you go? Psalm 33—good! You were listening; that’s awesome! I’m encouraged already. We’re just going to read one verse here, then we’re going to go to Psalms 148.
Okay, here it is: verse 6. By the word of the Lord, the heavens were made and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth. Look at it again: By the word of the Lord, the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth. Now, we know that in Genesis 1, it describes the Holy Spirit hovering over the surface of the waters, and then it says, «Then God said, 'Let there be light, ' and there was light.»
So the point I’m trying to draw your attention to is that when God speaks, He creates.
Okay, so go to Psalms 148. Alright, we’ll start with verse 1. It says, «Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord from the heavens; Praise Him in the heights! Praise Him, all His angels; praise Him, all His hosts! Praise Him, sun and moon; praise Him, all you stars of light.» And that’s a bunch of them! «Praise Him, you heavens of heavens, and you waters above the heavens.» That’s going to be interesting! «Let them praise the name of the Lord, for He commanded, and they were created.»
What I want you to see, I want you to use your imagination even as we read: He just described creation—all of the stars in existence. If you watch any science programs, it’s just mind-boggling what is there! The command is here, «All of them praise the Lord.» All the angelic hosts, every created thing, give praise to the Lord. Why? Because He commanded, and they were created! He spoke, and they were created!
Remember, you’re made in His likeness. He’s invited us into the realm of nothing impossible.
Alright, now I want you to go to, let’s see, go to Matthew chapter 8. Now I’m going to read a passage for you out of Psalms 107. My apologies; I thought I had this already marked, and I don’t.
Yeah, Psalms 107:20 says, «He sent His word and healed them and delivered them from their destructions.» He sent His word and healed them! Say that with me: «He sent His word and healed them.»
Now in Matthew chapter 8, we have this beautiful story of Jesus healing a centurion, a Roman soldier, a high-up Roman soldier, and his servant. It says, «When Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, pleading with Him. 'Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, dreadfully tormented.' Jesus said, 'I will come and heal him.' The centurion answered and said, 'Lord, I’m not worthy that You should come under my roof. Only speak a word, and my servant will be healed! '»
This is brilliant! Jesus, if you want to impress God, have great faith, because Jesus was stopped in His tracks on several occasions where He was talking with somebody, and He made the statement about this guy. He says, «I’ve not seen this kind of faith in all of Israel. I’ve not seen this kind of faith in the nation created to believe. I’ve not seen this kind of faith in the nation chosen, put into a place of relationship where faith should be normal.»
«I’ve not seen this kind of faith!» Even there He says, «Just say the word, and my servant will be healed.» Verse 13 says, «Jesus said to the centurion, 'Go your way; as you have believed, so let it be done for you.' And his servant was healed that same hour.»
Now go to Mark 11. This was read earlier in our prayer time. Today, Mark chapter 11, verse 20 says, «In the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. And Peter, remembering, said to Him, 'Rabbi, look! The fig tree which You cursed has withered away.' Jesus answered and said to him, 'Have faith in God.'»
I’m becoming more and more convinced that Dr. Charles Price is correct on this verse. It can be translated one of two ways, and the other way I think is better. It’s «Have the faith of God.» If you approach it that way, then you realize He is the source of all faith, not you. It’s not the result of striving; it’s not the result of determination or self-effort; it’s the result of surrender once again. So it’s either a gift or it’s a fruit. We know that faith is a gift of the Spirit given for a specific situation, or it’s a fruit of the Spirit, something that is in you in measure that can grow through use, but it all comes from the Holy Spirit.
«Have faith in God, have the faith of God.» Verse 23 says, «For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea, ' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.» Proverbs tells us life and death are in the power of the tongue. Therefore I say to you, «Whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.»
Now I want you to go to the Book of Proverbs. You guys still alive? We’re just going to work here for a little bit and see what happens. Proverbs—let’s go, oh let’s see, go to chapter 12. I love Proverbs so much!
Now, what I’ve talked about so far just in reading these verses is I want everyone to be conscious of the fact that, number one, we have access to a realm where nothing’s impossible, right? Number one. Number two, here’s a scary phrase, but it’s 100% true: the word of the Father through the mouth of Jesus has no more power than the word of the Father through your mouth. And I remind you because Jesus limited Himself to the ability of a human being.
Now, as God, obviously, He can do anything and everything, but He chose to live with self-imposed restrictions. And so when He spoke, He admitted—He said or declared to us, «The Son of Man can do nothing of Himself.» And I’ve looked it up in the original language; nothing means nothing. He couldn’t—and He could do nothing of Himself. So He’s telling us that when He said what the Father was saying, He says to the centurion, «Go your way; your servant lives.» It wasn’t His ability, although as God, He had that ability. He chose to live as a man dependent on the Father.
So when He said what the Father was saying—a situation, «Go your way; your servant lives"—He released a power for the deliverance because there was torment involved and the miracle of healing, and the servant was healed in the moment He spoke! There’s no distance in decree; there’s no distance in confession. So if that word is released through your lips, it has the same power!
Yes, so good! Man, I hope you get this; we’re not talking about dominating; we’re talking about surrendering. We’re talking about being yielded and willing to obey.
Now, what I want to do is shift just a little bit, and I want you to look at—one of these days, I’m going to go through the entire Book of Proverbs just on speech. It is stunning! It is stunning! And we’re going to read, oh, five verses I think tonight.
So chapter 12, are you there?
Yes! Verse 14: «A man will be satisfied with good by the fruit of his mouth, and the recompense of a man’s hands will be rendered to him.» Take the first half of the verse: a man will be satisfied with good by the fruit of his mouth. Fruit grows from seeds—words are seeds. What kinds of seeds are being planted?
Chapter 13, verse 2: «A man shall eat well by the fruit of his mouth; the soul of the unfaithful feeds on violence.» First half of the verse again: «A man shall eat well by the fruit of his mouth.» Eating is for nourishment, eating is for pleasure. Food was God’s original medicine. So when we talk in scripture about eating, feeding ourselves, we’re not just talking about grabbing an apple and eating; we’re actually talking about something that has ramifications throughout our relationship with God, our relationship with people, and our relationship with ourselves.
Nourishment, natural, spiritual nourishment is for strength; it’s for nourishment; it’s to release nutrients throughout my body, to bring health to my organs, to my blood, to every part, to my brain, and to keep circulation healthy. All these things are a part of healthy nutrition. Number two, it’s used for medicine. Biblically, the original medicine of scripture is food. And third, it’s for pleasure.
So our realm of delight and pleasure—the satisfaction in life, our realm of strength and health—that comes from food. I used to love working out; I love lifting weights and stuff. I remember my schedule in Weaverville; pastoring, my workout was always at the end of the workday, and I could always tell if I had a healthy lunch or not. If I didn’t have a healthy lunch, my workout wasn’t as good. So like three or four hours later, my workout would follow my lunch, my meal. And I literally started because of my goals in working out, I would keep a record of all my workouts.
My goal was actually—I started to eat for the workout! I actually started to think, «Okay, well, because I have this goal and because I’m doing this every day, I’ve got to eat now.» So I would actually eat for the workout!
So nutrients bring strength, health, and pleasure! Here it says what you eat is determined by what you say. Alright, now I’m going to start meddling! It says a man shall eat well by the fruit of his mouth! Go with me to chapter 15. It is absolute throughout the Book of Proverbs, but I’m just going to pick out certain verses here for you.
Verse 23: «A man has joy by the answer of his mouth, and a word spoken in due season, how good it is!» A man has joy by the answer of his mouth; if you’re lacking joy, you might want to examine your conversation. So often, we blame the environment; we blame the day that we live in; we blame the family; we blame the people we work with; we blame everybody but ourselves. And here it says you have joy according to your speech, according to the answer of your own tongue.
Go with me to chapter 18; we’ll read just a couple more verses and then I’ll just talk to you. Verse 20: «A man’s stomach shall be satisfied from the fruit of his mouth; from the produce of his lips he shall be filled. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.» Okay, are you thinking? Ten of you are thinking: «That’s a little frightening!»
Actually, a man’s stomach shall be satisfied from the fruit of his mouth, from the produce of his lips he shall be filled. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit. Here’s the deal: I’ve watched a lot of people for a lot of years go through horrible situations, very challenging moments. We just live on planet Earth, and we all have that.
But here’s the great mystery: I’ve watched certain individuals— I watch their language; I watch how they talk; I watch how they speak of other people. What they think is an attack of the enemy is only them having to eat the food they created with their own speech. They think it’s people ignoring their gift; they think they’re just not being recognized or valued; they think it’s just the enemy opposing their gift. They think of any number of a thousand things, when really all it is is they are eating a meal that they created with their own words!
So, what do you want to eat? It doesn’t mean—obviously, if you’re a parent, we have to correct in church life. We correct, we confront, we do all those things, but there’s a huge difference between venting and serving with a corrective word. Venting is punishment. If I punish you, it’s for my sake; it’s not for yours. Correction is for yours.
A lot of—we’ve got a lot of craziness going on in the church right now, and people are having leaders posture themselves to prove they don’t like unrighteousness. They punish because then they can convince everybody they don’t like unrighteousness; they don’t like sin.
I don’t know if this is making sense to you. I just know what I’ve experienced in the past. I had a radio person write me and basically, because I was showing support to someone who had fallen into sin, I didn’t support their sin but loved them, remained friends, hoping to help them get out of it. And this individual was threatening me; this is kind of awkward to talk about to you, but this stuff just happens. This all happens in my office; it doesn’t leave my office except tonight! Tonight it leaves my office!
They threatened to expose me if I didn’t take a stand publicly against this individual. I thought, «Well, you have a good time! I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to prostitute my relationship with a friend; I’m trying to help them get out of trouble so that you will think better about me, because I really don’t care what you think about me.»
I probably shouldn’t have shared that story, but hopefully, you get the point. The point isn’t being obnoxious; it’s not about being rude to people. It’s just that I’m not going to do something publicly to save face when I know what happens behind closed doors in more of a corrective, confrontive manner. At some point, we actually just have to trust the people that are helping to make decisions.
Boy, I got way off track on that last one. I slipped in a puddle. I think I did; I slipped in a puddle, and I’m trying to crawl out of it right now, and there’s—not sure how I can get out of it before this thing is over!
So I may just have to leave it right there. But let me get back to what I was wanting to target with you tonight. Obviously, the first thing is that we’ve been invited by the Lord to co-labor with Him, and what He dreams of for us is actually beyond what we could imagine. It’s Ephesians 3:20: «Beyond all we could ask or think.»
Now to Him, who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above beyond—I think He’s trying to make a point here—exceedingly abundantly above and beyond all, exceedingly, abundantly above and beyond all we could ask or think. Asking is my prayer life; thinking is my imagination.
He has committed Himself to work beyond the reach of my biggest, greatest prayer and my greatest dream. He dwells out there, but here’s the catch: the next phrase—"according to the power that works in us.» Catch it! «I’ll work out there beyond your reach if you let Me work in here.» In here!
According to the power that works within us, so nothing’s impossible as we co-labor with Him. We’re made in His image; He wants our words to be creative in nature. I don’t mean that we create planets, but you understand what I mean.
I’ve seen it on a few occasions where I could say something, and it would be done. I wish I could say it happens all the time. Maybe you’ll be the ones that do that, but I’ve seen it where a simple phrase changes reality.
And then to realize that that tool that is so powerful and so profound to bring life can also bring death. Sometimes, the struggles we face in life are just the result of us having to eat the words we said a week ago or a month ago. When we speak out of turn and we realize it, we have to own up to it and confess it quickly so the seed doesn’t take root. If they take root, they’ll bear fruit.
I don’t want to scare or shame anyone; I’m just trying to say, «Hey, be nice. Speak knowing you’re about to have a meal.» Alright, that’s enough—did you survive? So good! Bill, thanks. I work hard to not speak evil of people, and I really work hard at it. The reason is I hate to repent.
It’s true; it’s true! It’s pathetic, but it’s true! Oh man, if I say what I want to say, I’m going to have to go to them and apologize, and I hate that! I don’t want to! James talks about this phenomenon. In fact, I talked about it in the worship school this week. I opened the session. He talks about this phenomenon; he says, «Bitter water and sweet water shouldn’t come out of the same spring.»
He says we use our lips to praise God, and we use our lips to curse men. He said this ought not to happen! That’s bitter water and sweet water coming out of the same spring! It doesn’t happen in nature; it shouldn’t happen in us. The profound instruction in scripture is that your words—you can actually become a tree of life for people through your speech! You can be the person people want to be with!
There’s a huge difference between flattery and honor. Sometimes—probably most of us have moved in flattery when we thought we were moving in honor. And I get that we try hard, but honor really celebrates the value of a person. It does not say nice things so that they will say something nice back. Flattery is a manipulative tool; honor is actually celebrating who God has made that individual to be.
Every person deserves honor—yes, every believer deserves honor for three reasons. Every non-believer for two: every person is made in the image of God, right? Unbelievers—but every person who is deep in sin is using a gift God gave them for the wrong reason. But they’ve been made in the image of God. The second is they’ve been given gifts by God!
That’s right. The believer gets to be honored because the Spirit of God is upon them, so good! Honoring the Spirit in a way that’s encouraging and inspiring. Everything that we try to do around here, we try to do with three basic values in place: number one, as we teach, the Word of God has to be declared; number two, it has to be modeled; it’s got to be practiced; number three, you have to be empowered.
So, it’s teach, model, empower. It’s in the homes, it’s in church life, it’s in business—it’s in everything! You teach, you model, you empower! Paul Manwaring, one of our great, great leaders—he’s in England now, but he comes home often to see us—he ran a prison in England. He would assign a prisoner to sweep the sidewalk, and he’d get a broom and sweep with him! Because you model; you don’t just make other people do stuff. You get in there and do it with them!
Sounds like I’m trying to teach another one! It just changed your posture!
Alright, well, let’s pray, and then I’m going to turn it over to somebody. Probably, we should take a moment just to ask the Lord. Some of you just realized why you’ve been having such gross meals. You’ve been eating gross words, and probably a few of us should just right now say, «God, please forgive me.»
«I’ve been careless with my speech.» Just, if that’s you, do it now. «I’ve been careless with my speech, my opinions. I thought more about making my opinion known than I have about serving to help another individual.»
So Lord, we do pray; we just ask that You would cleanse our lips, our hearts, our minds so that we speak life, life, life, life into people. And we do want to know what it is to co-labor with You more and more, to see the impossibilities of life bow and bend their knee to the name of Jesus through our lips.
Pray that for our online family—that you would see the miracles of the Lord flowing in and through you guys this week! Thank you, Lord! Amen, amen, amen.