Today’s Bible Verse

And a little later those who stood by came up and said to Peter, “Surely you also are one of them, for your speech betrays you.”

Matthew‬ 26:73‬ (NKJV‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬)

Does Your Speech Betray You?

After Jesus was arrested and betrayed, Peter was accused of being a follower of Jesus. It was his speech that gave him away.  We become like who we hang around with.  Our speech tells people who we are.  But when Peter became pressured and fearful, he immediately began to change the way he spoke!  Peter denied knowing Jesus, and using profanity he said, “I don’t know the man!”  (Matthew‬ 26:74‬ TPT).‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

How often has the enemy gotten us to change our speech because of tribulation or persecution that arises for the Word’s sake?  The enemy will try to get us to deny who we are in Christ and what we believe by getting us to change the words we speak.

I like the way the Message Bible reads when Jesus confronted the religious leaders of His day‬‬‬‬‬‬:  

You have minds like a snake pit! How do you suppose what you say is worth anything when you are so foul-minded? It’s your heart, not the dictionary, that gives meaning to your words. A good person produces good deeds and words season after season. An evil person is a blight on the orchard. Let me tell you something: Every one of these careless words is going to come back to haunt you. There will be a time of Reckoning. Words are powerful; take them seriously. Words can be your salvation. Words can also be your damnation. (Matthew‬ 12:34-37)‬‬

Proverbs says death and life are in the power of the tongue.  Negative circumstances or the pressures of life will try to get us to confess and say the wrong things.

Like Peter, when we are around Jesus or in our secret place, we speak a certain way and we pray and confess the Word but when we leave His presence or our secret place, does our speech or confession change?

One day as I was praying for the business, for finances to come in, I declared, “God meets all my needs! There Is No Lack!  I confessed every scripture I knew and made up a few too…just kidding…

That day, after a meeting I had with one of my clients, he asked me, “How’s business? I said, “Business is Slow.”   As soon as I said it, the Holy Spirit convicted me.  I got into my car and the Holy Spirit spoke to me. He said, “WHAT did you say about your business?”  

“I said it was slow.”  

He said, “That’s not what you said in prayer this morning.”  

I responded, “I Know but, wouldn’t that be like lying to him if I said business was great?”

He took me to Romans 4:17: “(as it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations”) in the presence of Him whom he believed—God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did.”

The Holy Spirit was teaching me about my faith and confession.  God calls those things that don’t exist as though they do exist.  We call Abraham “father” not because he got God’s attention by living like a saint, but because God made something out of Abraham when he was a nobody. Isn’t that what we’ve always read in Scripture? God saying to Abraham, “I set you up as father of many peoples”? 

Abraham was first named “Father” before he became a “Father” because he dared to trust God to do what only God could do—raise the dead to life, with a word make something out of nothing. When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not based on what he saw he couldn’t do but on what God said he would do.

He was showing me how spiritual things work, by the words we speak. We cannot speak one way in prayer and another way when we leave the prayer closet.

I love what Charles Capps said, “Faith-filled words will put you over; fear-filled words will defeat you.” (Pastor Henry Acevedo)

Change My Story

Faith is released by the words that come out of our mouths.  Fear is also released by the words that come out of our mouths.  Have our words been faith-filled or fear-filled?  What we confess will control our lives.  Let’s allow the Holy Spirit to help us with our speech.  Let’s start today, watching the words we speak.

Today’s Declaration

Today, I allow You, Holy Spirit, to help me with my speech. Correct me and instruct me by Your Word.  I let no corrupt communication come out of my mouth, but that which is good for edifying, that it may minister grace to the hearer.  I will not grieve the Holy Spirit Who has sealed me unto the day of redemption.

Today’s Bible Reading

• Old Testament: Judges 20-21; Psalms 91
• New Testament: Mark 8:22-30; 1 Corinthians 14:26-40