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Words
“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Or so says the old adage.
Balderdash!
Oops! I almost forgot. Good morning, Folks!
Full of vim, vigor and vitality today? Right. Sure you are. Anyway, it’s a new week.
Let’s make it a good one. Grab your cup of coffee and let’s talk about a cliché that we’ve all grown up with.
Sticks and stones may break my bones…. Sure, but your bones can heal.
Quickly, too! Words, on the other hand, may not break your bones, but uttered in the wrong way can destroy your spirit, and that doesn’t heal like broken bones.
In the edition of Coffee Break where I wrote about Della Denise, my wife, I talked about the fact that she brought her children to me to pray over (some six months or so before we were married).
I shared with you how the Lord spoke to me in that moment and said to me, “I want you to be a father to these children.”
I’ve also shared how these children went through both physical, emotional, and mental abuse from their biological father.
Physical injuries healed quickly. It has taken many years to deal with the emotional and mental abuse and restore them to healthy status.
In order to deal with destructive words spoken against them, about them, to them, and in their hearing, it has taken a disciplined effort to speak life, to speak encouragement, to speak joy, to uplift, to uphold and to engender their creativity again.
During the 1970’s, while pastoring at Long Beach Christian Center, I also served as Vice President of a California-based non-profit charitable organization known as Refuge Ministries, Inc.
Refuge Ministries was in the business of providing homes for abused and neglected children and battered women.
We had other purposes for our existence as a charitable organization, but this was our primary objective.
Our organization purchased homes throughout the Los Angeles area and opened them up to women and children who were the victims of abuse.
I will never forget the day, however, when one of the women who had taken advantage of one of our homes came to my office at the church.
Her 12-year-old son was suffering from an extreme case of asthma.
It was growing worse and worse, to the point where he was having attacks while sleeping.
His mother feared that her son would die during his sleep because of these asthma attacks.
Her son was with her when she came to my office, and she was asking for prayer for him.
The Holy Spirit gave me a vision of the boy at the age of four, watching his mother get beaten by her husband, and hearing his father say that he was going to be next.
I saw the Fear of Death enter into that boy in that instant, and realized that it was this fear that was at the root of the asthma.
I shared what I was seeing with the mother, and she broke.
The event had happened eight years before and she had totally forgotten it.
We prayed, I rebuked the Fear of Death commanding it to leave the boy, and speaking healing to his physical body.
The next time I saw the lady, I asked her about the boy, and she said that his asthma attacks ended from the moment we prayed.
There is a principle here that I would like to share with you.
The wise old king and sage, Solomon, wrote, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and they who indulge it shall eat the fruit of it [for life or death].” (Proverbs 18:21 Amplified)
The previous verse reads,
“A man’s moral self shall be filled with the fruit of his mouth, and with the consequence of his words he must be satisfied [whether good or evil].”
So, how can this be?
It’s quite simple, really. Consider the makeup of man. In Genesis 1:26, we are told,
“And God said, Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness; and let them have complete authority…….”
We know that whenever God spoke, it was so. Whenever God speaks today, it is so. Whatever He determines and speaks comes into existence. If He speaks creative life, it takes place. If He speaks judgment and death upon someone, a nation, or whatever, it takes place. There is no discussion, no possibility that whatever He speaks will not come to pass. With one exception. Repentance.
That said consider the fact that we are made, molded in His image, after His likeness, with the capacity for authority over the earth.
Just because sin entered the human race and Adam and Eve brought judgment to us does not negate the fact that we were created with the ability to speak life or death with our voices.
When we speak evil, evil is created. When we speak judgment, we bring a curse.
When we speak life, we bring life into being.
Words have far more power than sticks and stones. Words can be everlasting.
They can have eternal consequences.
I learned early on in life that what I said had a direct bearing on my own circumstances.
It has a direct consequence in the actions of those around me.
If I speak encouragement to folks, I can negate doubt.
If I speak life where death has ruled, I can overrule death.
If I curse someone, the very act of that curse coming out of my mouth can affect me as well as the individual whom I curse.
Especially if the curse is undeserved by the individual to whom it is directed.
Watching my own children – those who were my natural children, as well as my adopted children – and working to reverse the damage done to them through evil speaking, false accusation, demeaning and belittling remarks has been a constant labor of speaking love, speaking encouragement, speaking creatively of them, to them, about them, and through them.
As they have learned to alter their own speaking from doubt, negativity, fear, cursing and unbelief, it has changed their character.
It is also changing the circumstances of their lives. Children who are demeaned, belittled and falsely accused, or whose efforts are negated through criticism become mirror images of what they hear, what they are told, and what they believe.
Proverbs 23:7 tells us that “As (a man) thinks in his heart, so is he.”
Tell a person often enough that they are stupid, ignorant, incapable of being producing individuals, and you eventually have a person who is stupid, ignorant, and incapable of producing anything worthwhile.
Why? Because it was what he was told, it was what he believed.
Because he believed it, it became who he was.
Reversing false accusations, belittlement, demeaning statements, doubt, fear and unbelief in people can be a monumental task, but it can be done.
My father blessed me beyond measure in ways that are still hard to compute when he said to me, “Son, take the word “impossible” out of your vocabulary.
There is nothing you can’t do, nothing you can’t accomplish with the Lord.”
There is another principle set in motion when words are spoken: the principle of agreement.
I often come back to this, and you will hear me refer to it frequently in my discussions, articles, teaching, etc., but we are first and foremost spiritual beings.
We were created for fellowship with God. It is the part of us that exists forever – even when our bodies decay into dust. In fellowship with Him, we agree with Him.
When we agree with Him, we absolutely have what we agree upon.
This is no fantasy. It is not a myth. It isn’t something I concocted out of thin air.
It has been proven literally thousands of times throughout my nearly 60 years of walking and talking with the Lord.
If the Lord says it, and I agree with it, I have whatever He says. He first spoke the words.
I came into agreement and alignment with what He spoke.
And whatever He spoke came to pass in my life.
That same principle applies when we speak words of life.
The fruit of our lips can be life or death. If we speak death, we often reap the consequences of what we speak – even if we are speaking death to someone else.
This past political campaign was a perfect example. When I ran for Congress, I resolved that I would never speak evil of my opponents.
I would not falsely accuse them, and I would not rail against them.
We could disagree over issues, and we could discuss and debate our disagreements, but I would never demean them individually.
A young man who had been politically active in past campaigns with other candidates joined my campaign.
At a debate one day with my opponents, he uttered some very demeaning remarks about, and in the hearing of, one of my opponents.
I said, “NO!!” to him, and made it clear that we were not going to run a campaign like that.
In the days that followed immediately thereafter, he kept repeating those belittling remarks to others.
His curses came back upon him, and he was crippled up with a severe abscess that kept him out of the remainder of my campaign.
He did not recover for many weeks thereafter. I shared with him the consequences of his words, and hopefully, this is a lesson learned that he will not repeat in the future.
In yesterday’s article, I noted how Della and I spontaneously, and in agreement with what the Spirit of the Lord put within us, spoke out when we heard Tom Daschle making knowingly false accusations against President Bush, and rail against him unmercifully.
“In Jesus’ name, Father, remove that man from office.
Remove the wicked from their places of authority, and raise up the righteous in leadership within this nation.”
We heard it in our spirits. We spoke our agreement with the Lord.
It set in motion a series of events that led to Daschle’s ouster from office and the election of John Thune to replace him.
I know that in the heat of political campaigns, words are often spoken gratuitously to tear down and destroy one’s opponent – words that might not otherwise be spoken when reason is applied.
We certainly have had political campaigns in prior generations that were as heated and as ugly as this past campaign, but none that so captured the nation’s attention.
When political opponents use lies and false accusations, and demean one another’s character and makeup, they bring eventual destruction to themselves.
Their words are not cheap! They have meaning. They have death in them.
Most of all, they have personal consequences.
We have all heard the unbelievable accusations that other politicians are making against the President.
Those words have not gone unnoticed in a spiritual realm, and those who continue such evil speaking will suffer the fruit of their lips.
I want to continue this discussion, but this is enough for today.
Throughout the next few days, we will take up various aspects of our words, what we speak, how we speak, and the consequences that follow for good and evil.
Now, perhaps, you will understand why for more than 30 years my goodbye or greeting has been, and continues to be….
Blessings on you! Have the best day of your life.
Regner
A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
RIVER WORSHIP CENTER
700 South 6th Street
Sunnyside, Washington 98944
(509) 837-4657
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