"Death and life are in the power of the tongue,
And those who love it will eat its fruit"
(Proverbs 18: 21)
During a "drug-rehab-support-group" gathering which we attended the other night, one of the folks started talking about "speaking life or death" upon one self or others without realizing it, which is so true…And that made me think again that words in general can be missiles or medicine, depending how we use them…Language has a much greater power than man recognizes…
Language was given to man alone at creation and plays a large part in making man unique among God's creatures. By language, man is capable of sustaining meaningful relationships to God and other men. It made organized, interpretative thought possible… By the word of Satan man sinned… By the living and written Word of God man is saved…
Its power may be performance orientated; it shapes and thereby brings about the fact that it describes… In so many instances this is true of people who have been "labelled" according to there wrong-doings... If we as Christian Ambassadors want to speak life upon people we must make sure that we are all students of words, and of God's Word! If we want to encourage and council people out there, we must learn to note the effect of the words upon other people…
The idea of the word in Scriptures is central. "Dabar" - the Hebrew term for word, carries a greater weight than for example its English equivalent. It refers to both the word and the thing that it signifies. For example, the power of a name is frequently mentioned in the Bible (Acts 4:10, 12) Names were also changed - Peter, Abraham and Saul were all renamed in order to signify facts about them as persons. We also do this in modern day context, although often to belittle people…
Language is a characteristic of God… God spoke and creation took place. Language is an important gift from God… By it we can discover what God requires from us and what He has done for us in Christ since we have failed to meet those requirements…
Proverbs 18 verse 20 says, "A man's stomach shall be satisfied from the fruit of his mouth, from the produce of his lips he shall be filled." This points out that we feed ourselves and others on the words that we speak… What we tell others and especially what we say to ourselves, in time we tend to believe…
Let's speak life and not death to our spouses, kids, family, friends and all other people out there…Remember, in the life of re-born human being, GOOD communication should always come first!
Love in Christ,
Rick & Peggy
