2006
Last month, we recognized that we are not waiting for Jesus to do something. He did all that was necessary! We, therefore, give acknowledgement to this Good News of Christ with words of faith. As “the Apostle and High Priest of our confession” (Heb. 3:1), He then confesses us before the Father.
Our main texts last month came from 1 John. Consider these companion verses, starting with 1 Jn. 4:4, “You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” This appears in the context of testing spirits against the confession that Jesus has come in the flesh and is in you as the burden-bearing, yoke-destroying power of Almighty God. Therefore, you never need fear the world, the devil, or the old slave master – sin!
Because Christ is in you, you are already an overcomer. Yes, you still have battles, but God so loved you that He sent His Son, in the flesh, as victor over those struggles of yours. A believer doesn’t talk the same way a non-believer does; the word of faith fills your heart and mouth. 1 Jn. 4:15 says, “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.” Believers dwell in the Overcoming One and the Overcoming One dwells in them. They are in the world, but not of the world. Their citizenship has changed. 2 Cor. 4:13 says, “And since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, ‘I believed and therefore I spoke,’ we also believe and therefore speak.” Believers speak words of faith, consistently confessing that Jesus has come and the battle is won!
1 John 4:5-6: “They are of the world. Therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them. We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.” The spirit of truth or of error is determined by whether or not your conversation confesses, acknowledges, affirms, and agrees that Jesus has come in the flesh as the burden-bearing, yoke-destroying power of God in you!
Look at James 3:3-6: “Indeed, we put bits in horses’ mouths that they may obey us, and we turn their whole body. Look also at ships: although they are so large and are driven by fierce winds, they are turned by a very small rudder wherever the pilot desires. Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things. See how great a forest a little fire kindles! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell.”
The tongue, likened to one little bit, match or rudder, causes so much else to happen. Striking a match doesn’t seem like a big thing, but if you drop it on the forest floor, you get a conflagration. The rudder on a ship is invisible, but the pilot knows only a little effort will turn it and, subsequently, the whole ship. The pilot could never do that, but he can turn the rudder. No single person could take the whole forest down, but the match can. That is why it says here, “the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members (or body parts) that it defiles the whole body.”
The tongue can literally corrupt your whole life... turn the whole ship… burn down the whole forest. It is your tongue that will move the driving power of the horse in another direction. It is your tongue that sets on fire the course of nature. Just as a bit or rudder changes direction and course, so too will your own tongue determine the course and direction of your life. Proverbs 4:23 says, “Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life.” That word “issues” is the translation of a word usually translated as “border” or “boundary.” The borders of your life are flowing out of your heart, straight through your mouth. “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”
If I want my future to be full of glory, I need to start talking about it today, because what I see next week, month, year, or decade is what I will have been sowing previously with my tongue. The entire course of the future is going to be determined by one member only, and it is not my brain; my tongue sets on fire the course of nature. The literal Greek translation says “it sets on fire the wheel of genesis.” That is, it sets the cycle of origins which opens an entirely new and different future.
How can it be so powerful? By constantly confessing that Jesus has come in the flesh, and greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world, it is confessing that you are a new creation, the old has passed away, and the new has come and is unfolding. If, instead, you consistently talk unbelief from the old pre-Christian way of thinking and talking, then tomorrow you will have more of the old!
But, you are a believer. You’ve been recreated in Christ Jesus. So, say things like this: “Jesus has come in the flesh. He is in me and I am a new creation. I am not what I was. I am something new, yet to be known by men. They will see the work of Christ unfold in me because I am an overcomer.”
God bless you and help you set a guard over your mouth.
-Walter Healy, Senior Pastor
