How Powerful is Your Voice

(Job 22:28 KJV)  Thou shalt also decree a thing, and it shall be established unto thee: and the light shall shine upon thy ways.

This is one of the most encouraging scriptures in the Bible. It could even be a follow up to Genesis 1:26 where God said, “Let us make man in our image.”

Perhaps the thought behind our text is that man’s words carries the same creative power as Gods words. That means that we are responsible for each of our words because they have the ability to produce both life and death.

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.” (Proverbs 18:21) 

The way we carelessly use our words, I sometimes wonder if we realize just how powerful they really are.

I recently read a story of the famed author and poet, Maya Angelou, who said that she was raped as a young girl. Maya told her uncles about it and they found the man who had raped her and killed him. She was so devastated by the man’s murder that she did not speak a word for the next five years. She said she immediately discovered just how powerful her words were because it cost a man his life.

The lesson young Maya Angelou learned probably helped make her one of the most powerful sculptor of words there ever was. She became a poet who had the ability to bend words into pictures of beauty that will continue to bless people for generations.

The Bible tells us things like, “Speak to the mountain and it will be removed,” or “Decree a thing and it will be established.” These are powerful statements which confirm that we are really made in the “image of God.”

I met a preacher a few years ago who invited me to come and speak in his church. He had a nice family and a growing church. When I agreed to come he said, “You don’t remember me do you?” He then proceeded to tell me that when he was a little boy I came and spoke in his church. He said he came every night to the meetings and one night I preached on “Seven Baptisms.” That message had such a profound effect on his life…he then preached the message back to me after all of those years making every point. He said that those words continued to resonate in his mind to the point that he finally surrendered to becoming a preacher.

Just how profound are our words? It is not uncommon for people to come up to me and remind of things I said twenty, thirty, and forty or fifty years ago that was a blessing to them.

Perhaps I was a little proud that people actually remembered something I had said in the past that blessed them. However, that pride soon vanished when the Lord reminded me that there were probably more people who could remember the unkind words I had said. The thought of that was terribly embarrassing and made me want to go and bury my head in the sand.

The face is, our words are powerful even when we think no one is listing. As a matter of fact there was a time in my own life that I was not sure that anyone heard a word I said. However, because of a special experience I had with the Holy Spirit I sudden noticed that people began to listen to me in a new way.

Hopefully each of us can spiritually mature as we realize the creative power we possess in our words. The power of words in the mouth of the immature is like a loaded gun in the hands of a child. The up side for the believer is that we actually can do as our text said and, “…decree a thing, and it shall be established…”

Father,

Thank You for creating us in Your image and giving us this wonderful creative power in our words. Help us to use our word power responsibly and for Your glory.

Amen