Today’s New Covenant nugget is from James 1:19 (AMP)
Understand this, my beloved brothers and sisters. Let everyone be quick to hear [be a careful, thoughtful listener], slow to speak [a speaker of carefully chosen words and], slow to anger [patient, reflective, forgiving]
Psalm 15:4 says to ‘swear to your own hurt and do not change…’ the Amplified Bible says to ‘keep your word even to your own disadvantage and do not change it for your own benefit.’
Ecclesiastes 5:2 says, “Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few.”
Death and life are in our ‘WORDS’… (Proverbs 18:21)
Use your words wisely and say things ‘on purpose’… mean what you say, and say what you mean. We are made in the image of God, and God puts His Word above His Name. (Psalm 138:2) God creates with His words, speaks life with His words and His character is defined by His Word… our words should be the same… they should define our character, they should always speak life and our word should always be our bond!
Once God says something, He will not change just because it is convenient…
“God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should change His mind. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?” - Numbers 23:19
Think things through, take your time before you speak, and then, once you have said something, do it! Don’t only honor a contract that is signed with a legal affidavit… treat your words as though they were legal documents. People need to KNOW that if you say something, that you will be one hundred percent committed to do what you have said, even if it is to your own detriment!
If people cannot count on your word, how are they going to trust God’s Word?
One of the biggest problems in Christianity today is that people say things that they have not thought through, break commitments that they make, speak lies and exaggerate… they say things, and fail to follow through just because it is inconvenient to do so, and they are quick to speak death when they should be speaking life.
How do I change?
Everything that the Lord wants us to walk in is by grace through faith… willpower will not get the job done… we have to be transformed by the grace and the power of God. Start by asking the Holy Spirit to help you to speak words of life and power… ask Him to help you to speak words of faith and for your words to reflect who the Lord has made you to be on the inside.
As you trust the Lord with this, I believe that there will be an immediate change… another thing to do is to be committed to follow through and to do what you say, even if it costs you… I have had to do some things that I regretted saying or committing to… following through and doing what I say, no matter what has been a great teacher to teach me to think and pray things through before I commit.
You will find that as you grow in this area that the Lord will bless your words to do great things in His kingdom… selah!
Blessings on you, Nick
