August 8 – Keep Paddling Upstream
Dear Marisa,
«Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips.»
(Psalm 141:3)
Do you really believe that you need to watch over your mouth? Most believers don’t. You can tell that just by listening to their conversations. They profess, for example, to be trusting God concerning their health. But you’re likely to hear them say something like this: «I’m just sure I’m going to get the flu. I get it every year. I’ll be sicker than a dog too, you’ll see….»
Do people like that have what they say?
Oh yes! Check with them a few weeks later and they’ll be quick to tell you that they got just as sick as they said they’d be. But, odds are, if you try to tell them there’s any connection between the words they spoke and the illness they suffered, they’ll look at you as if you were out of your mind.
Of course, if they’d dig into the Word of God and find out what it has to say about the subject, they’d realize that the words they speak have a tremendous impact on their lives. They’d see that it quite literally determines their future. If you’re a born-again believer, you’ve already experienced the most powerful example of that. You believed with your heart and confessed with your mouth the Lord Jesus and you changed the eternal course of your life. You know firsthand just how powerful your words can be.
Yet, even so, if you’re like me, you still find that speaking faith-filled words consistently is tough to do. I’ve been at it myself for many years now and, despite all the time I’ve spent on it and all the experiences I’ve had, it’s still something I have to watch all the time.
You see, the world around you is in negative flow. Like a rushing river, it’s always pulling at you, trying to get you to flow with it. Living by faith and speaking words of faith is like trying to paddle upstream. You can do it–but it’s a great deal of work. And there’s never a time you can afford to take a vacation from it. If you relax a little bit you’ll just start drifting right back down the river.
Make the decision right now to set a watch over your lips. Determine to consistently fill your mouth with the Word of God. «Attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings» (Prov. 4:20). Let God’s Word be your watch and everything you say will take you a little further upstream!
