Psalms 141:2-3 N KJV Let my prayer be set before You as incense, The lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice. (3) Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth; Keep watch over the door of my lips.
Psalms 141:2-3 CEV Think of my prayer as sweet-smelling incense, and think of my lifted hands as an evening sacrifice. (3) Help me to guard my words whenever I say something.
Why do we need to put a guard over our mouths?
Proverbs 18:20-21 NKJV A man’s stomach shall be satisfied from the fruit of his mouth; From the produce of his lips he shall be filled. (21) Death and life are in the power of the tongue, And those who love it will eat its fruit.
- Your life is filled with what your lips are producing.
How would we act if every word that we speak instantly came to pass?
Proverbs 18:21 ERV The tongue can speak words that bring life or death. Those who love to talk must be ready to accept what it brings.
More Reasons Our Words Are Important:
Proverbs 12:14 NIV From the fruit of his lips a man is filled with good things as surely as the work of his hands rewards him.
Proverbs 13:3 TPT Guard your words and you’ll guard your life, but if you don’t control your tongue, it will ruin everything.
Proverbs 15:4 TPT When you speak healing words, you offer others fruit from the tree of life. But unhealthy, negative words do nothing but crush their hopes.
Proverbs 18:7 NKJV (7) A fool’s mouth is his destruction, And his lips are the snare of his soul.
Proverbs 18:7 NLT The mouths of fools are their ruin; they trap themselves with their lips.
Proverbs 21:23 AMPC He who guards his mouth and his tongue keeps himself from troubles.
Proverbs 21:23 TPT Watch your words and be careful what you say, and you’ll be surprised how few troubles you’ll have.
There are two principles we need to grasp from God’s Word:
- We grow our faith by feeding on and speaking God’s Word.
We all have a beginning measure of faith given to us at the New Birth. (Romans 12:3)
We’re not trying to get faith. We’re not praying for it. We have it. Every believer already has a measure of the God-kind of faith. You see, God gets everyone started off the same way. He doesn’t give one person more faith than He gives another. He gives to every man the measure of faith. Then your faith grows according to what you do with it.
Remember, it’s up to you what you do with the measure of faith God has given you. For example, you can cause your faith to grow. You can feed and exercise it so when the storms of life come, you will have strong faith. But another person may not do anything with his faith. The person who does nothing with his faith will have weak faith.
2 Thessalonians 1:3 ERV We thank God for you always. And that’s what we should do, because you give us good reason to be thankful: Your faith is growing more and more. And the love that every one of you has for each other is also growing.
We know that the measure of faith given to every believer can grow. Your faith can be strengthened by feeding it on the Word of God and by exercising it or putting it into practice.
If you want your faith to grow, you have to start where you are. No one climbs a ladder starting on the top rung. You’ve got to start on the bottom rung and climb up if you’re going to reach the top. That’s the thing that defeats a lot of well-meaning Christians—they try to believe beyond their faith.
Remember, just because someone has fed more on God’s Word and has exercised his faith is not a sign that God have him more faith than He gave someone else. No, the person who fed on the Word and exercised his faith had the same measure of faith to begin with as the others had. But he fed his faith and exercised it, and his faith grew strong! As a result, he could believe God for more.
God created us to be able to hear our own words and build a capacity to believe them in our hearts.
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- When you are speaking God’s Word, you are building your capacity to believe God’s Word.
- Faith grows with your confession, but your faith will never grow beyond your confession.
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What are we to be confessing?
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- What Jesus purchased for us in His plan of Redemption
- What God has done in us in the New Birth and the infilling of the Holy Spirit
- Who we are in Christ Jesus.
- What God can do in and through us as believers.
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- We put our faith to work by speaking and acting on God’s Word.
Romans 10:5-10 NKJV For Moses writes about the righteousness which is of the law, “THE MAN WHO DOES THOSE THINGS SHALL LIVE BY THEM.” (6) But the righteousness of faith speaks in this way, “DO NOT SAY IN YOUR HEART, ‘WHO WILL ASCEND INTO HEAVEN?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ down from above) (7) or, ” ‘WHO WILL DESCEND INTO THE ABYSS?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). (8) But what does it say? “THE WORD IS NEAR YOU, IN YOUR MOUTH AND IN YOUR HEART” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): (9) that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. (10) For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Romans 10:17 NKJV So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
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- Our relationship with Jesus begins with not only what we believe in our hearts but also what we say with our mouths.
- It is not enough to just believe what the Word says, you must speak it if you want the results of it.
I call this concept “the heart-mouth connection.”
For instance, if you believe in your heart that Jesus purchased your salvation, and you put your heartfelt faith together with the confession of your mouth, you can literally receive that salvation and make it an eternal fact.
That is why you must be careful about what you believe in your heart and say with your mouth, because when your heart and mouth get “in sync” with each other, it literally makes things come to pass!
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- God’s creative power is released when the heart and mouth get into agreement!