power of agreement . . .

I’ve been challenged in the past year or so about my words and the power of agreement. Proverbs 18:21 says ‘The tongue has the power of life and death’. Scary but exciting truth. I wonder, if it were possible to count up all the conversations I’ve had and set them against each other in categories where I’ve spoken either ‘life’ or ‘death’ (about both myself and other people), which one would outweigh the other? Perhaps that’s not something to be pondered too much, but it challenges me.

It is important to talk about the stuff we are struggling with and acknowledge that it’s there, but this has to be accompanied by declaration of God’s truth. All too many times I’ve chatted with friends about how rubbish I feel about myself, which in turn has reminded them of their own insecurities, and before we know it I’ve succeeded in dragging them into my pity party. For some bizarre reason, wallowing in woes feels quite good - I’m not going to lie, its comfortable to indulge in a bit of self pity, it’s nice to feel justified in our struggles and squeeze sympathy out of people, but there comes a point where we have to make a choice about whether or not we’re going to stay there.

If our words contain the power of life and death, in conversations we’re essentially embracing one or the other. I find this really exciting because in speaking life we both counter the agenda of the enemy and agree with an awesome and powerful God all in one swift move. When we notice the potential others have and tell them what we see in them, we agree with God who made them in his image, and when we agree with him, earth is in agreement with heaven, and when heaven and earth come into alignment, the kingdom gets released, because people are walking in their true identity – sons and daughters of God, rather than in a lie.
Spot the lie, and counteract it with the power of life in the tongue.