If you decided to make a New Year’s resolution (or several), I bet you’re still a bit pumped up for keeping them, aren’t you? You’re a few days in and everything seems to be going pretty well. With the holidays behind us, we’re able to return to a semi-normal schedule, the kiddos are all back to school (or doing schoolwork at the kitchen table) and work, well, it never really went away. Gym memberships are on the rise (or one of the many health apps are being downloaded for walking, yoga, or Pilates), people are drinking more water, ingesting less sugar, and have read more of their Bible than ever before. All around, it’s a good time of the year!
Ever notice that when you set out to do something that will propel you to the next level, the devil takes notice? All the people that are in your corner for doing life are cheering you on, but their cheers don’t seem to drown out the enemy’s whispers that infuse doubt. Perhaps you’ve heard the sinister whispers – they sound something like this:
You missed a day of reading your Bible – what kind of Christian do you think you are?
Go ahead and eat the piece of chocolate… you can’t control yourself anyway.
What makes you think you have what it takes when no one else thinks you can do it?
You’re such a fool to think you even had a chance.
There are so many renditions of what the enemy likes to whisper to our soul, but they’re all about the same, aren’t they? They’re delivered with the same malicious goal: they’re designed to keep you so wrapped up in perceived failure that you don’t see that you already have the victory. You’ve already been redeemed.
Every time you try to level up, whether through continuing your education or simply setting goals for a healthier body or deepening your relationship with God, you’re going to have some obstacles come your way. You might resolve to be more patient with your family, yet the opportunities for showing patience seem much more plentiful than ever before… and you end up losing your patience a time or two. What if you resolve to save more money? That’s usually about the time that the car breaks down, right?
It’s easy to hear the discouragement and latch onto it. It’s easy to agree with the lies that are laced with small bits of truth. It’s easy to overlook the positive around us when we keep seeing the negative. It’s so easy that if we’re not careful, we’ll find that our own inner dialogue will start to sound strangely similar to what we once recognized as being lies from the enemy.
There’s a lot of science that comes up when our words become a topic of interest. I could go into the effects of our cortisol levels being too high, our oxytocin releases too few and far between, and how our bodies manage (or don’t manage) with the imbalance due to the negativity we receive, believe, and repeat. That’s right… we start out by simply hearing it, but then we often receive it, believe it, and repeat it.
I once read that our self-talk, for better or worse, is the seed bed to our conversations with those we influence. That’s a pretty heavy burden as a mother to young kiddos. It’s a heavy burden for anyone in a leadership role – at church, at work, at home – and even as a friend. But isn’t it just like the devil to take an inch and turn it into a mile?
Many Christians, even some who are active in their relationship with God, don’t seem to understand the power of their words, but the Bible is pretty clear. Our words hold the power of life and of death. And we get to choose which we’ll speak.
Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit. Proverbs 18:21 NASB
The word death in this verse is from the Hebrew word maveth (Strong’s H4194), and due to the context of the verse, it’s suggested that the word means something more physical like a deadly disease, plague, epidemic, or pestilence. Figuratively, it expresses ruin and destruction. Okay, so this might still come across as debatable, but then I look at the word life (Strong’s H2416 – chay) in the very same verse. It means flesh that is alive and strong. Not one, but both are referring to the physical.
Jumping over to the New Testament, the book of James, there’s a lot to be said on the power of the tongue (James 3:1-12). The tongue is described as a fire, the very world of evil is found in it, and it defiles the entire body. That’s just in one verse! We bless the Lord with our tongue, and we curse those made in His likeness. Then James does something interesting: he makes some obvious comparisons. Picture planting an apple tree but expecting a harvest of peaches. It’s absurd! Let’s speak a lot of death and expect an extremely full life.
The devil can’t make us speak words of death, but he can plant the seeds of doubt, the seeds that find fertile soil where the very world of evil is found. If he gets us to say what he wants us to believe, we defile ourselves! Imagine speaking – and believing – anything that goes against the promises of God! Is that what we want to experience?
We have the power to speak life – for ourselves, our family, our friends – or we can speak death. We can talk about how sick we are, or we can agree with God and speak about how our physical bodies were redeemed from the curse of the law (I Corinthians 6:19-20, Galatians 3:13). I’m not trying to tell you to live in denial about what you feel physically – 5 out of 6 in our family unit have been battling a bug this holiday season – but our words matter. I would rather agree with what God says about me than receive, believe, and repeat what the enemy wants me to believe.
“The thief comes only to steal, and kill, and destroy; I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly.” John 10:10 NASB
I’m resolving to silence the lies of the enemy. If it doesn’t line up with what God says about me or to me, then I want to see it for what it is: a lie. I want to only receive, believe, and repeat what God’s Word says. As I get better at distinguishing between God’s truth and the devil’s lies, I believe I will begin to see an outpouring of God’s promises coming to fruition for me and my family. I want us to be the definition of living life abundantly.