Your mouth can create a life or death situation
When you worship the Lord from a place of thanksgiving for what He has done for you, you are not only ministering to Him, but you are also testifying to others, prophetically, that what God has done for you, He will do for them as well! (Revelation 19:10) Your mouth, that beautiful worship-giving mode of expression God gave you, is the primary instrument by which you will speak words of life to the Lord, and to others. But. There is a dark side to this fabulous gift, if you haven’t already figured that out! “Death and life are in the power of the tongue,” says Proverbs 18:21. Life to the spirit or death to the soul. We are all given that marvelous, terrible power.
James 3:9-10 says, “With [our mouth] we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who are made in the image of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.” In Matthew 12:34 Jesus said that what is in your heart will come out of your mouth- be it blessing or cursing. Maybe you’re not literally cursing someone, but if our words are ungodly, the Bible says that our hearts are too. More lives have been destroyed by words than by bombs. Yet we show up to church and worship God with the same mouth we have used to disparage, gossip, slander, criticize or harm others. We even do it to ourselves! Ouch.
Your mouth, that beautiful worship-giving mode of expression God gave you, is the primary instrument by which you will speak words of life to the Lord, and to others. But…
You’ll spend the rest of your life walking through a process of sanctification, but James wrote that if anyone can control their mouth, they are perfect and complete lacking nothing. So…it’s safe to assume that clever, little mouth will always be a challenge as long as there are people in the world to bring out the worst in you! In Isaiah 6:5-8 the prophet wrote, “I have filthy lips…Yet I have seen the King, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.” Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal…He touched my lips with it and said, “See, this coal has touched your lips. Now your guilt is removed, and your sins are forgiven.” Then I heard the Lord asking, “Whom should I send as a messenger to this people? Who will go for us?” I said, “Here I am. Send me. And He said, “Yes, go….” Notice that Isaiah had seen the Lord. He’d had a revelation of God, as you have. Yet, even so the Lord still had to deal with with Isaiah’s mouth, and then Isaiah was able to do more, and to become a messenger for the Lord!
Thought for today
“My heart is overflowing with a good thought; I am speaking my works for the King, my tongue is the pen of a skilled scribe,” David wrote in Psalm 45:1. Only a perfect person can control their mouth all the time, and only Jesus was perfect, but worship will help you win the battle so you are not “hung by the tongue”! David’s trick was to keep his heart filled with beautiful thoughts about the Lord all the time and to use his mouth to write worship songs to Him, instead of to exact justice and retribution on the world. God is faithful. He knows what you struggle with. He made your mouth to worship Him and He won’t turn you away just because you’re not perfect, but He does want more from you, and better for you. As with Isaiah, if you’re ready to say, “Here I am” and if you want the Lord to respond with, “Yes, go”, submit your mouth to Him. It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it!
