They may seem like innocent little statements – true even, but understanding the Biblical power of your tongue shows how these words can have a big impact.   

“I always get hayfever at this time of year.” 

“Man, my bank account is so empty, I’m always broke.”

“My children are just such brats, they drive me nuts.”

“My memory is a sieve.”

The Bible is filled with references to the tongue and how important it is.  It’s compared to a spark that can set fire to a great forest, it’s compared to bit that controls the direction of a horse, and a rudder the direction of a ship.

All of these are small things, a spark, a rudder, a bit, and our words may seem of no consequence at first, but even steering a ship a small degree off course, can eventually end up causing a ship wreck, or causing it to get very lost.   Thus we navigate the ocean of our lives by using God’s Word as our map, which means we have to know it, and if we know it, we’ll realise that all of the above statements are contradictory to God’s Word, and yet so often we are guilty of saying them because they are the facts that are in front of us; however it doesn’t mean that they are truth.   Truth is what lines up with God’s Word. There is a difference between what is true (facts) and what is truth.

It is God’s job to shift our circumstances, but it is our job to align our words with God’s Words in order to see breakthrough around us.

The tongue has the power of life and death and those who love it will eat it’s fruit.  Proverbs 18:21

The Kingdom of God is voice activated. God spoke and the world came into being. 

God created the world with His Words and we are made in His image and therefore create our worlds with our words.

If you can imagine a door that is voice activated, the door is programmed to respond to a voice. 

The world around us is programmed to respond to our voice.     Our bodies are programmed to respond to our voice.  

So we need to be watching carefully what comes out of our mouth, as they are like seeds sown that we plant into the soil of our circumstances that then breakthrough the soil as a sprout.

Sometimes these manifest as instant miracles, which we love,  and sometimes it requires faith and persistence to believe that God’s Word is true and He is good even when it looks like nothing is changing.

It’s easy to pull up these sprouts of hope in moments of discouragement, and it’s ok to acknowledge your situation, or ill health as David did many times in the Psalms but he was also found declaring BUT GOD.

In Psalm 103 David is very deliberate about telling his soul, his mind, will and emotions to bless the Lord and forget not all His benefits.

John Bevere in his book, Killing Kryptonite, very briefly shares a story towards the end about an Iranian pastor whose second son suffered birthing injuries and they were warned that he would be a vegetable.  God told the pastor to speak to his son’s brain and command it be created anew.  So the father spoke to his son’s brain everyday, and eventually the boy began to talk and God said to speak to his legs, and at age 6 the boy was able to walk.  He is now healed and married with 3 children. 

Katherine Ruonala likewise shares a similar story of how after much preaching and worship leading when she was beginning her own church, there was an issue with her vocal chords and she was completely hoarse, and God had her speaking life and health over her vocal chords till one day she woke up with perfect range again. 

I greatly relate to these stories of persistence, as one who has been instantly healed, but also as one who has been fighting to regain health in the area of my gut, and has a family member with a condition that the world would say is chronic.

In view of how important what we say is, I really resonated with a lady I heard say how she was telling someone that she had cancer, but God spoke to her, telling her not to own the disease, but to say she was fighting cancer.

There is a difference between saying what is true (facts) and what is the truth (the way God sees things)

Sometimes I’ve been telling someone about a situation which is entirely true, but I will get very uneasy about what I’m saying because God wants me to speak what is truth and use that declaration to change the situation, not just repeating the facts of the situation, and I’ve later needed to repent of not aligning my words with His.  Our words open doors in our lives.  Are they opening doors for the King of Glory to come through, or the thief who wants to kill, steal and destroy?  

Kerry Kirkwood really digs into this in his book, ‘The Power of Blessing.’  By choosing to say things that are not in line with God’s Word, we can actually be cursing ourselves and others around us, preventing situations from changing.   

So a blessing is slightly different to prayer in that quite often, when we pray we can be listing our woes to God asking for intervention, where as a blessing is speaking over your situation or family member, “I bless my family to work well together, to be peaceful and loving towards one another, and to be growing the fruits of the spirit.”

That’s really what God wants for your family, not to be in strife, and it’s using our words to not add to the negative but to start turning the ship in a different direction.

But really it’s not whether you call it a blessing or a prayer, it’s the tone, is it whiney and negative or words that proclaim change?  I’m not saying you can’t tell God how you feel; David did many times but then He was found proclaiming the power of God over the situation throughout the Psalms.

Now if someone is doing something you don’t agree with but it’s not morally wrong, you don’t need to pray for them to change their mind, but pray for or bless them to have the mind of Christ in the matter and that God would show them His will in the matter.

The Israeli’s really understand the power in encouraging and blessing one another and it is something they regularly do at the Shabbat table, telling each other what was a blessing that someone in the family did for them that week, and saying how much they appreciate each other – isn’t that better than nitpicking?

I’ve heard of teachers getting to class early and going around blessing their students chairs using their names and behaviour changing dramatically, and I’ve also heard of family lawsuits and property settlements that have been quickly turned around by the power of blessing the people involved.

You can bless your body to be in perfect health and alignment.  You can bless your hormones to be well balanced, though often God expects us to do our part by evaluating our diets.  🙂

You can bless your workplace to be productive and if your boss isn’t pleasant start blessing them to know joy and peace and ultimately God, and see your situation turn around.   At the very least it’s going to bring you a lot more peace and joy even if the situation doesn’t immediately change, something God’s really been talking to my husband about lately.

Blessing is very similar to declarations – speaking God’s purpose and intentions over other and ourselves.

It’s similar to the prophetic in a sense that sometimes God will show us something about someone that He wants to call out the gold in that person when everyone else only sees dirt.

DECLARATIONS – ALIGNING OUR WORDS WITH GODS

One of the best things to replace our negativity with is God’s Word, and this is also how we renew our mind.

Speaking God’s Word has another benefit; we are building our faith.

Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.  Romans 10:17

In the initial sense, we come to salvation, by believing in our hearts and then confessing Jesus as Lord. 

By our words we are acquitted and condemned.  Matthew 12:37 

Our faith is also built in different areas by hearing and reading God’s; by speaking it out aloud or listening to it.

For example, if I’m tired I have often found that declaring this Scripture gives me the strength to get through the day. 

‘But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.  Isaiah 40:31 KJV

If you’re broke start giving (giving releases blessings to flow) and start declaring

The blessing of the Lord creates wealth and He adds no trouble to it.   Proverbs 10:22

The Word of God is called the Sword of the Spirit.

Imagine if you were to go to battle with a sword but you’d never practiced with that sword before; you probably wouldn’t win. The WORD is the sword; we need to be practicing with it because there will come a day where you will need to fight for your life with it, literally, and if you don’t know it, you can’t use it. Even when it feels like you don’t understand, know that you are practicing with your sword, and that God will bring it to you when you desperately need it. Jesus fought the enemy with the Word of God in the desert, even when the enemy tried to twist the Scripture.

 A little while back I shared on Instagram how I kept feeling stuck.  Stuck in my neighbourhood, spiritual walk, health etc,  and I wasn’t even necessarily saying it, just thinking it, but Scripture says and now science has proven, as a man thinks in his heart so is he. (Proverbs 23:7)  God challenged me that I was thinking all wrong and brought to mind the Scripture from

2 Peter 1:3 – His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence. 

In his book, ‘Planting the Heavens’, Tim Sheets really digs into this connection between your thoughts and its affects on your emotions and health, and how to start changing these perspectives.

YOUR TONGUE AND YOUR TESTIMONY

It also says in Revelation that the saints overcame by the blood of the Lamb, the Word of their testimony and not loving their lives to the death.

Our testimony doesn’t have to be a great long story, it can just be simple things that God does in our life everyday. As we share and declare these, it’s building our faith and the faith of others that God can do that for them  too.

There are a couple of Psalms that are very specific about us needing to say things in order to shift our circumstances. 

Psalm 107

¹ Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
his love endures forever.

² Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story—
those he redeemed from the hand of the foe,

Here we see that we should be regularly declaring and praising God for what He has done in our lives.  Nothing is too small.  Give Him thanks for your salvation, or the clean water that runs from your tap.  There may be a million things you don’t like about your house, but start praising Him that you have one, and you’ll see your attitude change, even before your situation does (trust me, I’ve lived in 7 rentals in 7 years).

In Psalm 91 we are given a great host of promises, promises that when activated can save your life in the most drastic of circumstances, but they are voice activated. 

I will SAY of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust.  Surely He will save you from the fowler’s snare and from the deadly pestilence”  Psalm 91:2 

There is a fantastic book written on the promises of Psalm 91 by author Peggy Joyce Ruth, whom I have interviewed on this blog.  She has studied out every word of the promises contained within this Psalm and recorded testimonies of people who should have died but started declaring this Psalm and instead lived through the most intense situations, including kidnapping, plane wrecks, war, hurricanes, fires etc.   

So, we’ve seen our words can harm and our words can heal, they can bring life and they can steal.   To help us remember the power of our tongue, I’ve created this printable so that these truths go down deep inside of us.  PRINTABLE VERSION HERE

The power of the tongue has been something I’ve been raised believing and something that I’ve seen in my years of prayer ministry, how a parent’s careless words over their child can have great impact, sometimes shaping their whole life.  We are all guilty of saying things that don’t align with God’s Word, and I’m thankful for the forgiveness He gives through Jesus blood on the cross.

If you’ve said something over your children, or had teachers, parents, bosses or peers speak things over you simply pray, “I repent in Jesus Name for speaking words that do not align with God’s Word, and I cut them off the lives of those I’ve spoken them over, and I forgive those who’ve spoken cruel or careless words over my life, and cut the power of those words off my life.  I say that an undeserved curse shall have no effect. (Proverbs 26:2)”

What has God shown you in the area of your tongue?    Your testimony can be a great blessing to another, so feel free to share below.

If you would like to receive six weeks of Biblical prayers and blessings, I invite you to join our community below, we’d love to have you.