Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof. A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. Proverbs 18 :21, 24
May God add His blessing to the reading of the Word. May his anointing flow. There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. Hallelujah! There are some things back there in 2011 that make us not want to go on: sickness and disease—so many things. But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. We know the situations and circumstances we’ve been in; and it’s Y’shua, Him only, who brought us out, and gave us the strength to persevere.
People frequently articulate many harmful suggestions, which at first may not sound like outright wickedness. However, they are careless words that do not reflect an operation of faith.
Lashon is the Hebrew word for tongue, language and speech. This expression conveys two different ideas. Lashon ha kodesh, is the life language; whereas lashon ha ra, represents death language. Our Savior communicated that
out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Our heart is a reservoir of thoughts, which are eventually reflected in the words we say.
Speaking can actually be dreadful; for example, on an individual level, slander can even lead to murder. On the international scale, saying the wrong things leads to riots, wars, assassinations: big time events and tremendous loss of lives. In days of old, the Jewish sages considered evil speech to be in the same category as idolatry, sexual immorality & murder, and punished it equally so. That is, death, death and death. If we were to obtain this reverence for God, there would be many things we would never say nor do. Oh God, please help us.
Focusing on the good side of speech, lashon ha kodesh, is our lifeline. Excellent speech brings forth wisdom, hope, encouragement, upliftment, and promotion. A proper tongue gives increase, prosperity, and love. Yes, yes, yes. Our primary example is God Himself, who’s every word is creative, and life-giving. Furthermore, in the story of creation found in Genesis, we learn that He made man in his image & likeness. Amen, we certainly have no problem with that.
Elohim creates ex nihilo (out of nothing). Although we are in His image and likeness, our language cannot give rise to something out of nothing. However, our speech does carry a life-sized weight. God gave man interpretive power. We are His junior partners, so to speak. Let us consider that at the time of creation, when God rested on the seventh day, time was left for man to invoke authoritative, interpretative, and re-arranging skill: the power of his words.
For example, it is when Adam named the donkey, that it became a donkey, or a horse, and so forth. That is why Y’shua told His disciples that what they said determined the outcome of certain situations. Glory to God.
Let us begin this New Year with a correct attitude. We know that if we have faith, we can say to a mountain, ‘Be thou removed and cast into the sea, and it will be done.’ WE may consider that our problems are like mountains. Unfortunately, we have a tendency to blow them up to the size of Mount Everest. Nevertheless, we are not the ones who move the mountain; we simply speak the prevailing interpretive word.
Our speech, lashon, is the vehicle given to us to cause problems to dissipate from their roots, just like the cursed fig tree in the Gospels. Coming out of 2011, there are so many things I would have loved to do differently: to re-interpret and re-arrange…. But glory be to God, we have 2012!
Rearrangement
Let us attempt, with the help of God, to rearrange some things. Let us approach situations, as believers in Y’shua, not with careless, faithless speech, but with the interpretive power of God. Then our lips won’t get us into so much trouble, and we will not develop non-harmonious relationships. We’ll be the head and not the tail, above only and never beneath. This is the kind of prosperous year, and life, God desires for us.
