Don’t Change Your Words. Change Your Thinking.

Length: 7 Minutes

Confession is very misunderstood in the church today. It’s either dismissed or it’s taught as the means by which we receive from God. Confession is important, but not because of what it is, but because of what it indicates.

Years ago, there were a lot of things that I used to say flippantly that I don’t anymore. I would joke about oldness, sickness, my appearance, my bad habits etc. That is, until I grew a bit more. For instance, when I was younger, I used to joke about how I was addicted to sugar because I had a sweet tooth. I would joke about overeating and how hard it was to stop. The more I got to know the Lord, the more I stopped speaking like that. No one coerced me into it. I wasn’t trying to watch my words. I just stopped joking about my tendency to eat too many sweets, because I stopped believing it. I don’t believe that I’m bound to anything in this world. If there is food that is not profitable to me, I now realize that it is not a part of my new nature to be addicted to it. 

Back when I was still joking about “being addicted to sugar,” I could’ve said that I was trusting the Lord with getting in shape. I could’ve said that I believed temperance was a part of my new nature. I could’ve said that I was acknowledging who I was in Christ in this area. But if I was still joking about my lack of temperance in my eating, I still believed it.

I would’ve liked to think that I believed something else, but those words were still in my mouth. And while it’s still coming out of your mouth, you still believe it, because your mouth speaks out of the abundance of your heart.

Luke 6:45 (NKJV) …For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.

Confession itself is not how you receive from God. You receive from God by faith in what Jesus has done (Romans 5:2), but you can’t say you abundantly believe something, while you are still speaking the contrary. When we joke about overeating, being old, or some inability — as if it’s just our lot in life — when we’re complaining about how bad things look, we can’t say that we’re meditating on anything else.

One might say, “I do believe the truth, but still find myself speaking contrary.” That’s because it’s not just the things that are in your heart that you speak. It’s the things that are abundantly in your heart that you speak. The things that are most prevalent in your heart are the things you’re going to talk about. When the gospel’s more prevalent than anything else, you’ll speak about the gospel more frequently. When other things become more prevalent, even though we still believe the gospel, we’ll end up speaking about other things. It’s not just what’s in your heart. It’s what’s abundantly in your heart.

As we said before, speaking the truth is not how you receive from God. Speaking is a work, and we don’t receive by works. It’s a simple as that. But while we don’t receive by speaking the truth, we also can’t receive without it. How can I say that? It’s not because we receive through confession, but because confession shows what we believe about Jesus. And we receive through that belief!

Let me give you an example. Let’s speak in mere human terms for a moment. If a thermometer is hanging on the wall in someone’s house, and it reads “-20°” is that dangerous to a human body? Yes it is. That’s a bad thing. But what are we saying? Is the thermometer dangerous? No. It’s not the thermometer that’s dangerous. The thermometer’s not going to hurt anybody. It’s what it’s showing that is dangerous.

Your mouth is like that thermometer. It’s an indicator. Your mouth is the thermometer which gives a reading of what’s in your heart. It’s not really your words that are important. It’s what they’re showing that is important. This is why I can tell you that you don’t receive by your words, nevertheless, you also won’t receive from God until your words start lining up with the truth — not because of the words themselves, but because of what they’re indicating. They indicate what we believe. Just like that thermometer indicates the temperature in the house.

Unfortunately, when people hear this, they immediately start being careful about what they say. They start trying to change they’re words. That’s not the right way to go about it. The Bible says that God doesn’t want us to change our words. You heard right. God doesn’t want us to change our words. God just wants us to change our thinking. Your words will follow.

We don’t receive from God by what we speak. If we start trying to change what we speak, but we still believe the same, we’re not going to receive anything more from God! If you hear yourself say something that you know is contrary to the gospel (as everyone will at some point), then you know that you need to get your thinking right about that particular subject. Don’t let this article drive you to be careful about words. Let it drive you to be careful to think in line with Jesus!

In Matthew 12, Jesus said that we shouldn’t change our words. We should just change our mind. He refers to our words as fruit and our mind as the tree.

Matthew 12:33-34 (NKJV) “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit. Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart [the tree] the mouth speaks [the fruit].

Jesus’ advice is, “Don’t change your words. Either make your mind bad and your words will be bad, or make your mind good and your words will be good.” That is the interpretation of what Jesus was saying.

Your words are just following and reacting to what you’re thinking on. So, if the words are bad, don’t change the words. That won’t help anything. Just change the mind and the words will follow!

Let’s go back to the thermometer analogy. If you look at that thermometer on the wall, and it reads “-20°,” why would you try to alter the thermometer? That’s not going to help anything. It’s only indicating what’s going on in the house. Don’t alter the thermometer. Turn the heat up! Change the temperature! 

When we try to change our words, like they are the problem, it’s like trying to alter the thermometer. You’re just changing the indicator, not what it’s indicating! Your words are only indicating what’s in your head, so don’t change your words. Turn your eyes to Jesus and think in line with your new self!

God wants us to either think the right thing or think the wrong thing. That’s the choice. The words are just fruit which will indicate what we’re thinking on. If we think a lot about a subject, we will speak a lot about that subject. If we’re thinking on fears and doubts, we will speak fears and doubts. Or, instead of meditating on what we currently see in our life, if we meditate on the wonderful works that God has done for our life, we will speak with excellence. We will speak like we’re blessed. We will speak like we’re free. We will speak like we have a confident expectation of manifestation! All the while, automatically helping everyone around us as well! That’s easy ministry!

Even when our words line up with the truth, we’re not receiving by our words. We are receiving by the truth of Jesus that we believe. Nothing else. Don’t change the words. Change the thinking.

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