A Call to Prayer: Prayer and the Power of Words
Happy August! The summer is zooming by. I pray it has been good for you all.
At a time in my life, I sensed the Lord was working on me to guard the words I spoke. I was challenged that negativity was not to be part of what came out of my mouth. In James 3, it speaks of the power of the tongue. It is a sign of spiritual maturity to not stumble in words and be able to bridle our tongues. Verses 10 - 12 say, “Out of the same mouth proceed blessings and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening? Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Thus, no spring yields both saltwater and fresh.”
The Lord is challenging us as intercessors to ensure the standard of our speech is high in life, purity, and anointing. We come to the Lord out of a relationship with Him with words in prayer, petitioning, and standing in the gap for others. How can gossip, slander, and negativity follow those words of intercession? Colossians 4:2, 6 says, “Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving…Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.” The Bible says of the Proverbs 31 woman, “She opens her mouth with wisdom, and on her tongue is the law of kindness.”
If this is challenging, I know! The Lord has been teaching me for years on being an intercessor and prophetic voice. Yet the effectiveness of that call can be stymied if my speech is not pleasing in His sight. I decided to count the number of verses in the book of Proverbs that addressed speech. It totaled 105, with the crowning verse being Proverbs 18:21, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.”
There is something about agreement with God that is a powerful principle in living fulfillment of destiny. Heaven and hell are both looking for our agreement. When we choose to turn off the thoughts from our own flesh or from a dark realm but instead focus on the words of God - both the Logos (written word) and Rhema (spoken, now words) - we find ourselves able to walk in God’s ways.
The Lord spoke to Joshua in Joshua 1:8 regarding the power of the Word of God in our mouth, “This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” The word meditate in Hebrew is ‘hagah,’ meaning to ponder out loud to oneself and to reflect.
Paul told Timothy (I Timothy 4:14) to meditate on prophecies spoken over him, “Do not neglect the gift that is in you which was given to you by the prophecy with the laying on of hands of the eldership. Meditate on these things; give yourself entirely to them, that your progress may be evident to all.”
Whether it is the praying and decreeing of pure scripture or prophetic revelation, there is an aspect of using our mouths to make it happen. Bill Johnson put it this way, “Nothing happens in the kingdom unless there is first a declaration.” One last scripture: “You will also declare a thing and it will be established for you. So light will shine on your ways” (Job 22:28). As intercessors, let’s declare and pray powerful words of life, hope, and light.
Every Blessing,
Patricia Bootsma
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