Speak Life

Part One: Change Your Mind, Change Your Life

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Watch your words. Proverbs 13:3 - "Those who guard their lips preserve their life, but those who speak rashly will come to ruin."

Speak Life, is part one of the three-part blog post, Change Your Mind, Change Your Life. On my journey to freedom, one of the most important things I wanted was change. When I was much younger, my circumstances were different, so I just wanted to change my life for the better. Now, that I am older, the changes I seek are more personal. For those changes, God said I had to change myself and become new. Of course, change is not easy, and it takes quite a while if it is a lasting change. At first, I thought I needed to be more disciplined and self-controlled so that is what I asked for in prayer. However, that is not actually where I needed to start, and it took me a long time and a lot of failed attempts to realize this. You cannot speak defeat and expect a victory no matter how much you ask for it in prayer. The first thing to start changing are your words because your words are what come into being. Proverbs 18:21 says, “The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.”

To change your actions, you first must change what you speak. You must change what you say to yourself as well as what you say about yourself. Your self-talk is important. Whatever you say, is what you believe and whatever you believe is what you will move towards and eventually what you will do. What you believe about yourself will dictate your actions and your actions create the life you live. For example, if you tell yourself that you are fat, then you will overeat because in your mind you are already fat. So, if you want to lose weight, you must speak about becoming healthier, eating better, and getting more exercise. Stop saying you are fat. You must change your self-talk, your internal and external conversation. Encourage yourself to become healthier, then you will begin to do things that cause you to lose weight. You need to change what you speak to change the course of your thoughts. Once you change your thoughts, you will begin to move towards what you speak and now believe to be true.

Speak about who you want to become as if you are already there and not about who you are for the moment. Speak those things that are not, as though they were (Romans 4:17). If you are moving forward towards where you want to be or what you want to do, your condition is subject to change. He said, “Let the weakling say I’m strong!” (Joel 3:10). That means do not let your current condition define you. You have no intention to stay there. You are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalms 139:14) and more than a conqueror (Romans 8:37). You are in the state of becoming the person you want to be so just keep striving, you will make progress, and eventually, you will succeed. However, progress does not come without change and change cannot happen until you first change your words. You must change what you say to and about yourself.

In my book, A Journey to Freedom Through Prayer, I have a prayer titled, Speaking over My Life. If you have a copy read it. If not, it is available for purchase on my website, Amazon, iTunes, or anywhere online. However, the end of the prayer says,

“Remove every negative word and the characteristics that were formed.

What I speak will be developed for my good and not my harm.

That I would speak words of encouragement and make declarations of life as I abide.

I will wait in expectation for the plans you have as I speak over my life.”

I am encouraging you to begin to change your words today. Stop the negative self-talk because it does not serve you. God shows us the things we need to improve so that we can become the best version of ourselves. He does not want us to be defeated, He wants us to overcome. I believe He wants the same thing for us that we want for our own children - a beautiful, abundant, and prosperous life. Begin to pray specifically and ask God to develop in you the characteristics you need to be successful in your endeavors. Express your heart’s desires and ask God to give you the blueprints to your aspirations but know that it will come at a cost. This means you will have to do the work to inherit the promises. However, when it is all said and done, the promises far outweigh the cost. (This is a different conversation for another time. 😊)

To start, change your words and just see what begins to happen when you speak life. Click the link for Part Two, Shift Your Focus. Also, to purchase the Speak Life t-shirt go to https://www.bonfire.com/store/for-the-moment-43/ or the Bonfire link on the homepage.