THE WEIGHT OF OUR WORDS

By Michele Perry, Journeys of the Heart,  Aug 2004  www.rminternational.org

 

John 6:63
"It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life."    NAS

 

Communication has long been an interest to me.  I majored in it in college.  Recently I have begun to wonder why some people speak and the words they speak carry a weight of unseen authority with them and others could repeat the exact same speech and have it be empty.  I want my words to carry weight and bring life.  I want what I say to carry God's authority and bring forth His purposes on the earth.

 

Jesus answered my ponderings with the analogy of our words being like containers.  His words had power because they were filled His Spirit and Life.  When our words come from the revelation He gives, when they correspond to an inner reality of Truth in our hearts, when they are filled with His Spirit-- they have weight, are filled with life and carry an authority with them.  They are weighty because they are filled.  That seems to be a simple enough concept, eh?

 

When we speak only out of information, but not from the place of revelation where Holy Spirit causes the Truth to be alive in our hearts and applied in our lives; our words lack that weight because they are not filled.  They are empty.  We all have had encounters with people who were talking about a subject they knew nothing about based on practical experience.  No matter how confidently or even accurately they spouted theory, it had a hollow ring of emptiness about it.  We must engage and witness the Truth we proclaim in the depths of our beings so that we speak out of an inner reality of intimacy with the Lord, not an external database of information.

 

Imagine a trial.  A witness swears in and takes the stand.  The prosecution asks the witness to testify about the crime in question.  The witness responds with the account she read in the morning paper.  When pressed for specifics as to what the scene looked like, she admits to not knowing because she didn't actually see the scene.  Was she even there?  Well no-- but she read all about it.  Her testimony and her words on this matter would be worthless because she was not a witness to anything.  She saw nothing first hand. 

 

How often do we try to speak or testify of something we have read that sounds good but we have not actually witnessed in our own lives?  Information is not enough to fill words with life, no matter how accurate or true.  We must have personal encounters with the Lord and His Word so we have something to bear witness to.  The flesh-- our human intellect and mental calisthenics profit us NOTHING.  We need words that are spirit and life, that come from the heart of the Lord and our times with Him.

 

If we want our words to have the authority of heaven behind them, they need to be born from the revelation of heaven.   If we want our words to have weight, then we must take the time with the Lord so that He can fill them.  We must choose to speak out of that which is real in us and we have witnessed.  As Holy Spirit makes the Word live in our hearts and as we hear Him speak to us, a reality of relationship with the Lord is forged.  It is this reality that gives us the authority to share what He shows us. 

 

What are our words filled with?  They will be filled with the overflow of our hearts.

 

Matthew 34:12b -  For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

 

Empty hearts produce empty words.  If our hearts are filled with life and the Spirit of the Lord, so shall our words be.  If our hearts are filled with pain, unforgiveness, bitterness and death, so shall our words be.  If our hearts are empty and barren, no matter what we say, our words may be profound but they will be profoundly empty.  Our words are the containers that carry the contents of our hearts. 

 

I long to have an ongoing, deepening, progressive, intimate, revelation knowledge of the Lord that grows every day.  I want my witness to bear the weight of reality.  The Spirit gives life.  The flesh profits nothing.   I want the words I speak to be spirit and life and be containers of revelation.  Will we allow the Lord to take a hot coal from the throne room and purify not only our lips but our hearts? (See Isaiah 6.) Out of the overflow of a purified heart, we will speak words of life.  Issues of speech always reflect issues of heart. 

 

May we take time to listen to our words and allow the Lord to teach us to hear beyond what we hear-- beyond the information the words bring, to the weight of revelation they contain.  It is only that revelation that will effectively bring transformation.  What do your words contain in them?  Ask the Lord to show you today.

 

The Center for Biblical Transformation    www.rminternational.org