Your Words Can Set You Free

 Jesus demonstrated not only God's power, but also God's consistent commitment to healing.

Curses are conveyed through words. They must be cancelled through words. 
God wants to set you free with HIS words of blessing, but the devil wants to take you captive again with HIS words. 

You often do not hear the devil's words directly from demons, but from other people. There are people who attack you repeatedly with harsh words. It is good if you can avoid such people. 

But you hear the devil's words very often in your own thoughts. You must defend yourself by not agreeing with these thoughts.
 
The worst thing is when you repeat these witchcraft spells aloud with your own voice. Then you curse yourself.

What is the antidote and how does it work?

You can redefine yourself with truth. 

Have you sinned? Then ask God for forgiveness and he will forgive you. But that is only the beginning. Then you must forgive yourself. Please forgive yourself!

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 
If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 Jn 1:8–9 NRSV

Are you unsure whether you truly belong to God?

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Jn 3:16 NIV

Do you believe in Jesus? He died for you. Have you given your life to Jesus? Then you are a beloved child of God. 

But it is possible that the message of Jesus is only a religious truth for you, but not a personal reality, not something you experience in your everyday life.

If you are in this religious no-man's-land, you can take these words of Jesus to heart.

Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me. Rev 3:20 NRSV

Jesus does not want to offer you mere religious beliefs. A life based solely on doctrines is only religion.

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Mt 11:28 NRSV

If you have truly found Jesus in your life, you can redefine yourself.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Rom 8:1 NRSV

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come! 2 Cor 5:17 CSB

Have you made peace with God? Then you can claim God's blessings in the Bible. You are no longer inferior, no longer a failure, no longer condemned. 

You can think words of blessing about yourself and speak them aloud, and you must. Bless yourself again and again, again and again, especially in bitter hours. 

Push with your thoughts and words against the current of your previous life.

Don't say, ‘My life is like this and will never change.’ NO. I am getting out of this mess!!! And my escape to freedom is already well underway!!

Loving Words are Powerful

 We are all called and destined to serve Jesus. A servant is one who serves. God is love. Anyone who receives God's love and passes it on with practical love is a follower of Jesus and a servant of God.

Practical help without respect and compassion is not love. There is a poisonous compassion without respect and genuine love by looking down on miserable people. Jesus never treated his fellow human beings like this.

No ordained ministry position enables you to serve Jesus and your fellow human beings. Only the love of God can enable you to help people and please God.

Anyone who follows Jesus with love and wants to help people must cultivate loving thoughts in their soul and always speak encouraging words. Words can kill or give life.

Between 1982 and 2000 there was a great revival in Argentina. Christians organised a Jesus march in a large city.

Homosexual activists also came to protest against the Christians.

The leaders of the Jesus March prayed for wisdom from God. Then something amazing happened. The Christians approached the homosexuals and asked for forgiveness for the cruel treatment of homosexuals by many Christians.

The homosexuals felt the true love of God and some converted to Jesus.

I know Christian women in Germany who visited brothels to help prostitutes. Their motivation was compassion and kindness. One prostitute went to the cinema with one of the Christian women. In the middle of a very secular film, the prostitute shouted out loud.

‘Now I believe in Jesus.’

She had heard the kind words of the Christian women that came from the heart and she felt the love of God.

So should we throw away the Bible? By no means, but we must learn to apply the Bible as the words of a loving and merciful God.

If you understand the Bible as a strict law book, you must ask the Holy Spirit to read the Bible with new eyes.

We find truth in the Bible. Greed, sexual debauchery, lies and hatred are forbidden, but in the Bible we see how Jesus loved the thieves and prostitutes and wanted to help them with deep compassion.

A woman had her baby aborted. Then she received a letter from a religious Christian woman. She read that she would end up in hell because of the murder of her baby. This letter did not come from God's heart.

A missionary, preaching with God's love, told the women that they would see their deceased babies again in God's heaven if they believed in Jesus. That was the truth, but not the truth that kills, but the truth that leads to life.

The tongue can bring death or life; those who love to talk will reap the consequences. Pr 18:21 NLT

The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil; for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks. Lk 6:45 NRSV

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Ps 139:23–24 NIV

THE POWER OF WORDS

In the beginning God spoke, and it happened.
“Let there be light!” and the light appeared.

God speaks. It is in His eternal nature. He is not a silent God.
Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets... Heb 1:1 (ESV)
Then God sent His Son into the world to show us what He is like. When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, God became flesh and blood.
...but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. Heb 1:2 (ESV)
The eternal Father sent His eternal Son to represent Him on earth to act for Him.
So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. Jn 5:19 (ESV)
And the Father also sent Jesus to speak for Him.
Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Jn 14:10 (ESV)  
We have a wonderful record of the words of Jesus in the Bible, which we rightly consider to the Word of God in book form. It is in the very nature of God to speak. He did not stop speaking when the Bible was published. The Spirit of Jesus who inspired the Bible also speaks through the Bible as we hear it and read it today.
The words of God give life.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. Jn 5:25 (ESV)
When Jesus spoke to the lifeless body of Lazarus in the tomb, the stinking corpse stood up and Lazarus walked out alive. Even today, there are believing Christians who have spoken to dead bodies and they have returned to life.
Death is the great enemy of humankind, but there is an even more terrible curse upon us, spiritual death. If you don’t know Jesus personally, you are separated from God and as good as dead for ever and ever.
We can only be truly alive by receiving the words of Jesus and getting to know the eternal ONE whose words give life.
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. Jn 10:27-28 (ESV)
How spiritually alive are you? This question is a good test.
Do you know what God is saying to you now? Do you frequently receive direct communication from the Spirit of Jesus?
In the time of Jesus, each sheep was in constant personal contact with the shepherd. Where the shepherd walked, the sheep followed. When the shepherd called, the sheep heard and responded.
This reminds me of a lovely song.
“I heard the Lord, call my name. Listen close you’ll hear the same. Take it and we are glory bound.”
But take care not to confuse the VOICE of God with the words of Christians who water down the truth.
The Bible says we are saved by grace and not by our works. That is true. But often the wonderful word GRACE is watered down. We think it means mercy, and it does mean mercy.
But grace means much more. The grace of God is also the creative power of God.

Jesus saved an adulterous woman from execution by stoning. Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.” Jn 8:10-11 (ESV)
This was not only mercy but powerful grace. The words of Jesus imparted inspiration and divine power to change her life.