Our speech is unbelievably powerful; words carry the force of life and death (Pr 18:21); our lips can be a vehicle for good and also for evil. (Mt 12:35) We choose eternally every time we open our mouths.
We shouldn’t let impure words come out of our mouths (Ep 4:29a), lies or false accusation, or any malicious words (1Pe 2:1), intended to harm or afflict others (Pr 12:18), only edifying words which minister grace to others. (Ep 4:29b) We’re to speak truth in love. (Ep 4:15)
The fact that God intends to — and actually does — minister grace through our words is remarkable. Grace is God’s power enabling us to become more like Christ; God ministers grace through our words by speaking in and through us, converting souls through His truth, equipping others through the concepts we convey as well as in our tone and manner. As we abide in Christ He lives and loves and works in us, through our very wills and words, to transform others into His own precious likeness. (Ep 4:15) This godliness is indeed a mystery (1Ti 3:16), how God can work in us both to will and to do (Php 2:13), yet it’s reality.
Similarly, when we aren’t careful, Hell itself can set lives ablaze with evil through our words. (Ja 3:6) Every time we open our mouths we create new reality from the void before us, bringing into eternal being what has never existed before, and which will never be forgotten; not only when we’re speaking with great forethought and deliberation, but every idle word is captured and weighed. (Mt 12:36)
Our words fashion reality according to our wills and hearts, something reflecting our inmost being, and will ultimately prove out whether we belong to God. (37) We should speak with this in mind, in prayerful, sober restraint (Ja 1:19); we’ll be judged according to how our words, as well as our deeds, align with Torah. (Ja 2:2)
How powerful is the spoken word? What’s its potential? Christ promises words of faith can move mountains, that nothing’s impossible. (Mt 17:20) Christ’s promises are true, yet not everything we confidently proclaim comes to pass; the reality we create may not be what we expect. The problem isn’t in the promise, but in our understanding of faith: godly power isn’t found in selfish presumption (Ja 4:3), but in supernatural knowledge of God’s will.
God can and will speak through the godly as we abide in Him (Jn 15:7); Christ lives in us … grace is poured into His lips (Ps 45:2); He is full of grace and truth. (Jn 1:14) What’s He saying in us? Let’s be saying this, and only this. He can move mountains and hearts for His kingdom through us. Let the cry of our hearts therefore be: “Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.” (Ps 19:14)
Here’s a song that captures the heart of this for me.
This does not, in my view, support the “name it and claim it” kind of teaching, that we can move the spiritual real merely with our wills and words — God does not act as a machine based on our manipulation of Him. If we ask anything according to His will, He hears and answers.