The Power of Speaking into Something
[ Preached by Pastor Kenneth Chin at Acts Church Malaysia on 10 June 2018 ]
Read | Proverbs 18:21
Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.
If you want to eat the fruit of your life, you need to go back to the source – which is your tongue and what comes out of it.
What have you been speaking?
What are you saying? Have we been gathering in “pity party” groups about how bad our boss or country is? If so, we need to stop because nothing good will come out of it except the fruit of bitterness.
Salvation doesn’t only come with a belief in our heart but requires the confession of our mouth.
Read | Romans 10:9-10
If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Did we remain silent when we needed to speak?
There are too many times when we forget to speak. Perhaps we have experienced times when we raised a voice during a meeting and got shot down. Times when we feel underappreciated. When we go through tough times, we remain silent. We store wishes in our heart but these don’t change anything.
Read | Matthew 8:8-10
The centurion answered and said, “Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” When Jesus heard it, He marveled, and said to those who followed, “Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!
The centurion, whose servant was ill, had asked Jesus to speak a word and his servant would be healed. The centurion had used the words “speak” and “say, instead of “wish”, “hope” or “think”. When Jesus heard this, He marvelled at his faith.
When people are discouraged, the first thing that happens is they become quiet. The enemy doesn’t only want us to be discouraged, he wants us to become silent. This is because when we stop speaking, that’s when we become disabled and paralysed in our spirit. We will spiral downwards not only to find ourselves defeated and deflated but eventually give up.
The Bible teaches us to speak. Thus, continue speaking God’s word. No matter how we have been discouraged, if it’s the truth, say it. If it’s right, speak it!
Read | Mark 11:22-24
So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God.” 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. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.
According to the original Greek meaning, we are asked to “have faith like God”. This is because as believers we are supposed to follow after, emulate and copy the One in whose image we are made in.
Can we speak life?
So how does God work? One of the first things we see God doing in Genesis 1 is to speak.
Read | Genesis 1:3
Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.
“God said”, not “God thought” or “God wished”.
Many of us are living in darkness in some way or other, with dark clouds hanging over different areas in our lives – hence, just as God had said “let there be light”, it’s time we have faith like God to also speak His light into that darkness.
Read | Romans 4:17b
God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did.
God calls forth those things that are not as though they were. In our relationships with others, stop thinking that other people will understand without us speaking – in the end, we are the ones defeated because we are just hoping instead of talking.
Read | Mark 11:23
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.
Jesus didn’t ask us to “wish” or “hope” for the mountain to move, but asked us to “say to the mountain”. As Christians, we forget we’re not supposed to look at the mountain and cry. We need to first look past the mountain to see the God who’s bigger than the mountain, and then speak to the mountain – tell it to go. Tell that cancer, that debt and that problem to go.
It’s normal to go through repentance and regret when we did something wrong, but instead of dwelling on feelings of regret, let’s get past that so we speak up. Sometimes the real mountain is within us, thus we need to first get the mountain out of us.
God deals with our speech
Read | Acts 2:4
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
When the Holy Spirit came, the first thing He unexpectedly touched and changed was the people’s tongues. The first miracle He did was to loosen their tongues, which shows He deals with our mouth before anything else. Similarly, when the people tried to build the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9) which displeased God, He touched their language so they couldn’t understand each other.
Read | Acts 2:17
“And it shall come to pass in the last days”, says God, “that I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams.”
When the Holy Spirit is poured out on all flesh, the first thing that happens is prophecy, which again involves our mouth. Before the seeing comes the speaking. Thus, if we really want to see breakthrough, we need to start speaking differently and the Holy Spirit is here to help us.
Read | Revelations 12:11
And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.
We overcome the devil not just by the blood of Jesus, but by the word of our testimony. When I am poor, I call forth prosperity and provision to pay the bills. When I am wrong, I apologise and repent before God.
How does Jesus speak?
Read | Matthew 4:4-10
When Satan tempted Jesus in His body, soul and spirit in the wilderness, Jesus spoke each time to counter what the enemy said. He didn’t wish, hope or desire the devil to leave Him. After He spoke, the devil left Him.
This was how Jesus spoke:
- Speak clearly
- Speak confidently – know that we have the authority to speak.
- Speak convincingly – be convinced about what we are speaking.
- Pray concentratedly – be precise when we speak or pray, for example, by naming the part of the body that’s affected or the illness we are suffering from. Don’t skirt around the issue and “miss the demon”. Some stains may be worse than others so we need to focus on them.
- Pray conclusively – have confidence that when we speak or pray, it is done and there is a conclusion to that issue.
Some of us are driven by unhealthy desires, speaking rashly to prove ourselves perhaps from the wrong things, wrong expectations or wrong judgement that were said to us.
Jesus wasn’t insecure about his identity as the Son of God. Jesus wasn’t doubtful that God is good. So Jesus didn’t need to test God nor to prove Himself to the devil. In fact, He knows that He is not accountable to the devil.
Let’s rebuke what is not holy. Let’s put into our vocabulary the truth and the word of God. Let’s speak for the supernatural to become natural. Let’s take on our own victory in Christ through our speaking because there is power when we speak.
#decadeoflegacy2030
Written by Writer’s Ink
Edited by Hailey Chung
