Victoria Osteen - Our Words are Containers of Power
Amen and amen! You may be seated. Thank you for being in the house of the Lord today. There's a story in the Bible about a woman who was sick for 12 long years. She had a condition that caused her body to lose blood, and it left her frail and weak. She went to all these different doctors, but no one can help her. She spent everything she had, but instead of getting better, the Bible says she got worse, but one day, she heard that Jesus was in her town, and she got up off of where she was, and she got out into the crowded streets with her frail body, and she is described to be the woman who has pushing through the crowd, trying to get to Jesus.
Now, there was a crushing crowd that day, and she was one of those people trying to get to Jesus. She made her way to Jesus, and she touched him that day, and she was miraculously healed. Jesus has power to heal you. Jesus has the power to deliver you. Jesus has the power for anything that you need in your life, and so many of you already know this story, and it's a miraculous story, but what I want to look at is what she was saying to herself as she was dragging her weak body through the crowd. The Bible says that she was saying, "If I could only touch the hem of his garment, I'll be healed"! That you got to get the picture of this.
This woman was very ill in her body. She had little strength. She was frail. There was people everywhere, and she continued to say to herself, "If I can only get to Jesus. If I can only get to Jesus". You see, she had to not only push through all the people that were on the streets that day, but she had to push through the crowded thoughts in her mind, thoughts that said, "You're never going to get well. Why do you think Jesus can heal you? No one else has been able to help you all this time". She had to push through the opinions of the friends that maybe she had been around, like, "Darling, man, you've tried so hard. Maybe you should just give up"?
See, not only did she have to physically fight that day, but she had to mentally find the thoughts to keep her words going in the right direction. Thoughts create words. She had to find the right thoughts so she could get the right words out of her mouth, and those simple words were, "If I could only get to Jesus. If I could only get to Jesus". You see, when she released those words, she was releasing her faith. Those were faith-filled words. Those words gave life to her body. See, she really didn't have a chance, but because of what she continued to say to herself, she got to where she needed to be, and that was at the very edge of Jesus' garment. That's all she needed, and as soon as she touched him, the power left him, and it went into her body and healed her.
You see, her words got her where she needed to be, close to Jesus, and can I say this today? We are going to have to do the same thing as this woman does. We're going to have to push through the crowded thoughts, self-defeating, limiting thoughts that life would try to tell us, and we're going to have to arrange our thoughts where we can speak the right words out so that we can get to where we need to be, and where we need to be is close to Jesus. See, we can't allow our thoughts to push us around. We've got to decide that we're going to push our thoughts around. That's exactly what she did.
You know, it's interesting because, sometimes when you're physically tired or physically sick in your body, it's hard to find the mental capacity to almost pray, but this shows us so well that she was able to arrange her thoughts where she could just utter that simple phrase out of her mouth, and those words literally gave life to her spirit. The Bible says that the spirit of the man sustains the man. See, when you utter words of faith and victory, it goes into your spirit, and it charges your physical body. Words are powerful. Words are containers of power, and we got to understand that we get to choose what we think, and we get to choose what we say.
Yeah, all day long, we're going to have thoughts bombarding us, you know, thoughts of all kinds, no matter what we're doing. "That guy over there just yawned. I think he's bored". "Oh, somebody's moving. I guess they're leaving". Those are thoughts. Those are thoughts that'll come to your mind. "I thought that person yawned. They must not like what I'm saying. They must be bored". We all have 50,000 - 70,000 thoughts coming at us, according to researchers. How many thoughts a second is that? We've got to learn that we don't have to rest on self-defeating thoughts. We don't have to rest on the thoughts and opinions of other people. We can rest on the thoughts we choose to rest on. We can allow those to take dominion in our life, and then through those thoughts, our words will line up.
It says in Genesis 1:3, that, in the beginning, God saw this earth. It was just dark and void. He looked at the earth, and he spoke these words: "'let there be light', and there was light". God spoke light, and there was light. Now, the most amazing thing about that is, is when you think about it, this earth was created by a word. The DNA that is embedded in this earth was God's spoken word. That is what's sustaining this earth. See, God established something there. He established a pattern for us to follow, and that is that our words cause a response. Our words carry weight. They cause things to happen. God said that you can create life or you can create death by the mere words that come out of your mouth.
The most interesting thing is you can't see the words coming out of my mouth, can you? But my words can create a reality that I can see, and that's what we have to understand. They may be invisible, but they are creating at all times. We can't throw them around. We just can't toss them around like they don't mean anything. Not only to the people around us, our families, but we can't allow words to be tossed around in our own life because our words have a huge impact on us, and when we begin to get our words about ourselves right, we'll be able to get the words about everyone else right, but too often, we allow our thoughts, self-defeating, limiting thoughts, to circulate on the Youtube of our mind, and we dwell on these negative thoughts, and, you know, they not only make us unhappy, but they don't allow us to become everything God wants us to become. They don't position us for success.
See, whatever that woman was facing, she did not let it get the best of her. That woman, when you think about it, somehow, by the grace of Almighty God, had a champion's mentality. See, she had a winner's mentality. That woman overcame and overrode all the negative voices in her life to find faith-filled words. You can truly say, "That woman was a champion". After 12 long years of no signs of any improvement, that woman finally got to where she was supposed to be. She got close to Jesus, and she pulled the very power out of him by what she said. Jesus recognized it. He said, "Who touched me"? He looked at her and said, "Woman, what do you believe in? I mean, because your faith just made you whole. It pulled the power out of me".
Listen, if we can stop long enough to recognize the thoughts that are trying to limit us, if we can stop long enough to change those thoughts and speak the right words, we're pulling the power right out of Jesus. Every time you speak faith-filled words, the power of Jesus is coming into your life. You're getting closer to where you need to be. God is drawing you closer and closer. You know, it's interesting because no one was speaking words of faith over her. The doctors certainly didn't. They sent her away. No, she didn't get to come to Lakewood church and hear Joel bless her every day. No, she had to find it within herself by the grace of God, and some of you, you probably can say, "I've never had anybody speak anything over me that's positive words of encouragement. When I grew up, man, people talked down to me, discouraging things to me".
Maybe some of you are facing a situation where you're in the middle of a bunch of negative people with negative words. That lady was, but, can I tell you, those things can end today because you don't have to wear anyone's words. You have the final say. You cast the last vote. You get the last word. You can put a stake in the ground right now because you have the power of choice: what you're going to allow to think about and what you're going to allow to come out of your mouth. It's really not that difficult.
If you listen to this lady's story, all she said was, "If I could only touch him. If I can, oh, those thoughts: 'but the doctor says you can't... but if I can only touch him". "Man, my boss is being so mean to me". "Well, that's okay because I'm the head, not the tail". "Oh, man, these finances aren't looking good". "That's all right. Jehovah-jireh is my provider". "I mean, man, I've been put down so long, I don't even know if I have any self-confidence or self-worth". "That's all right. I'm made in the image of Almighty God. I'm his masterpiece. I'm the apple of his eye". "Man, you can't do that. You're not talented enough". "Oh, no, no, no. God has filled me with everything I need to live a life of victory. I have 'appointed' and 'purpose' marked all over me".
You see, what we have to understand is we don't have to have a big, long verse. We don't even have to know where it's found in the Bible. We don't have to know how that's been translated into Greek or into Hebrew. We don't have to know all that. It's good to know all that. It's good to have knowledge, but, listen, you start where you are today, and that's a simple phrase, is "I am more than a conqueror. God has called me to triumph over everything that has come against us. The victory that's in him is the victory that's in me". Simple phrases will chase off discouragement. The only way to overcome those negative voices is to chase them off with faith-filled words. If you'll put the right stuff in, I want to tell you, the right words will be there when you need them, amen? Amen! He's an awesome God, and he's for us and not against us.