YOUR ARE THE PROPHET OF YOUR LIFE
PART 2

BY KENNETH COPELAND

If you have ever heard the saying, “stick out like a sore thumb,” you have probably never thought a thing about it. Most people don’t. It’s just one of those sayings people use in conversation without giving much attention to what it really means.

But “stick out life a sore thumb” is a phrase that I believe accurately describes Gloria and me, that is, up to a point.

For the past 32 years, we have stuck out, but more like a healthy thumb in world full of sore ones, and all because we have been careful of the words that come out our mouths.

It started in February 1967, when Gloria and I decided to take the Word of God seriously and believe everything it said. Then we came across Mark 11:23, which said we could have what we say.

The concept of “having what we said” was totally new and different to us, but we began living it the very day we heard it. We began paying close attention to every word and phrase that came out of our mouths because we were suddenly aware that each word would affect our future.

Since that day, we have been called everything from “those name it and claim it preachers” to “that blab it and grab it bunch.” And it’s never been said in a way that would make us feel all warm and good inside.

I have to admit, though, Gloria and I started doing a lot of naming and claiming back then. We grabbed some “out of debt,” some “free of sickness” and some “peace of mind” and we have been prospering ever since. For 32 years, we have been laying hold of everything that’s promised in the Word of God and purchased by the blood of Jesus!

YOU ARE WHAT YOU SAY

Your future, good or bad, is in you right now. It’s in your mouth and it’s determined by the words you speak. Matthew 12:34-37 says it this way:

“For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart brings forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. But I say to you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the Day of Judgment. For by your words you shall be justified, and by your words you shall be condemned.”
I don’t believe the Bible can get any clearer on the impact that words have in our lives, both now, and throughout eternity. Being justified by our words, or condemned by them, is a spiritual law. It’s one that cannot be changed.

That means, we alone are the prophets of our own lives. It doesn’t matter what anyone else says, not our pastor, not our parents, not our spouse, not some preacher or prophet, not even the Bible or God Himself. Even His mighty word can have little or no effect over our lives until we put His Word in our mouths and speak them in faith.

Simply put, you and I are what we are today, and we have what we have today, because of what we said yesterday.

Not long ago, as I meditated on this principle and the passage in Matthew 12, the Spirit of God said, “Kenneth, most people go from day to day hoping nothing bad happens, hoping nothing happens that I can’t handle. Then, when the curse comes, because of what they have been saying and thinking, they try to change things in a few moments of prayer and tears, not realizing that, over a period of years, their words actually cause what happened.”

That was a mouthful of truth. Yet, as telling as it was, the Lord went on to say: “Meditating continually on the lies of the devil builds doubt and unbelief in your spirit until it overflows in abundance into your mouth. Then it is released in words of fear and takes action.”

From the Lord was saying, I saw clearly that, if you and I just go along in life hoping nothing will happen and we never walk by faith, we never apply the Word, then we are exercising faith in something bad happening to us, and it will come to pass.

“Oh, but, Brother Copeland, I don’t meditate on the lies of the devil.”

Wait a minute. I didn’t tell you what the name of that kind of meditation is; it is called “worry.”

You see, the Church has not understood enough about the principles in God’s Word concerning this to realize that words of fear, that is, words birthed by our worrying, bring to pass the works of the devil, just as words of faith bring to pass the works of God.

The truth is, Satan can do nothing to us apart from fear any more than God will do something for us apart from faith. Faith connects us to God. Fear connects us to the devil.

MY NOTE: I heard Joyce Meyers say this some time ago. If you have a dog and want to have him come to you, what do you do? You call his name and whistle. Fear is whistling for the devil. Faith is whistling for God.

Since we begin speaking the word of fear, it isn’t long until we begin acting on them and living them out.

Because of fear, people, including believers, can hear about a big layoff of employees by some company in another part of the country, and they start worrying about their own jobs. Before long, they’re flipping through the classifieds, looking for new jobs, just in case. They don’t stop to think they could believe God for the ones they already have and never lose them.

MY NOTE: Do you know what caused the Great Depression in the United States in the 1930’s? IT WAS FEAR. Our economy is fear based. Just look at the stock market and the price of oil. Whenever there is bad news about something, it affects the stock market and the price of oil. What about the banks that failed recently? You could see the panic starting. Do you know what caused Job to have his calamities? He made a statement that which I feared has come upon me. Look it up.

We are told in 1 John 4:18 that “perfect love casts out fear.” Notice it doesn’t say crying over a situation will get rid of fear. Neither does it say that hiding will get rid of fear. No, perfect, or perfected love, casts out fear.

What we need to know, then, is how do we get this perfect love. How is love perfected?

It goes back to our choice of words.

In 1 John 2:5, we read, “Whoso keeps God’s word, in him verily is the love of God perfected.” In other words, the more we keep the Word, or act on it, the more the love of God is perfected in us.

So, we need to exchange our words of fear for the Word of God. We need to take the Word, our sword of the Spirit, and launch an attack against whatever fear that tires to crowd its way into our lives. That is how we disconnect from it.

My brother and sister, it all comes down to: WHOSE WORDS ARE WE GOING TO SPEAK? GOD’S WORD, OR THE DEVIL’S?

POWER PACKED WORDS

As I mentioned earlier, the fact that our words determine our future is a spiritual law. Everyone is subject to it.

Proverbs 13:2-3 says, “A man shall eat good by the fruit of his mouth; but the soul of the transgressors shall eat violence. He that keeps his mouth keeps his life; but he that opens wide his lips shall have destruction.”

In verse 2, a man means any man. So this principle applies to all of us. There are no exceptions. We do, however, get to make a choice concerning our outcome, which, again, is determined by our choice of words. We can choose good words and have a good life. Or, we can choose destructive words and have a life of destruction.

Even as believers, if we just let out mouths run loose and never put a watch over them, the devil will see to it that we fill them with words of destruction.

Take the word “damn,” for example. Most of us consider it to be profane, especially when connected to God’s name. Why is that?

Well, it‘s profane because God is not the condemner. If he were, then the phrase would not be vain, or profane.

But it is because God is the Blesser.

In reality, we probably say far more in our normal day to day conversations that is profane in the ears of God than we realize.

For instance, just think how often you have heard a believer say something like, “Yeah, it’s flu season again, and our family always seems to catch whatever is going around.”

Why would a statement like that be profanity in the mouth of a believer?

Because Jesus died so every believer could be healthy, spirit, soul and body. Yet, born again, Spirit filled people of God go around condemning themselves to sickness all the time.

Oh, they can declare “Jesus is Lord!” all day long, but that is not going to mean much when they are speaking sickness in the same breath, and inviting every devil within miles into their homes and bodies to rule and lord over them with that sickness. That’s profane.

Words like that are also profane from this standpoint: Consider Almighty God, who sent His only begotten Son and spared not His precious blood so we could have authority over all sickness and disease.

Yet we go through life saying things such as, “I’m just so afraid of getting cancer,” or “I just dread going through another season of hay fever.” That is profanity in our mouths.

While all this may be sobering to think about, it’s just a glimpse of the kind of power we hold in our mouths.

The truth goes even further. In Malachi 3:1-13 we read:

“Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts. And all nations shall call you blessed; for ye shall be a delightful land, saith the Lord of hosts. Your words have been stout against Me, saith the Lord. Yet you say, What have we spoken so much against thee?

In the Amplified Bible, verse 13 says, “Your words have been strong and hard against Me.”

Can you image your words could be so powerful that they could actually stop God? They can. And that is exactly what happened in this passage.

If God tells us to do one thing, and we decide, “No, I want to go this way and do this other thing,” that is when our word become hard and strong against Him. They actually stop the power of His word in our lives.

Remember, when God said, “Let us make man in our image” (Genesis 1:26), that meant we would have the same power He had to choose our own words, speak them, and thereby determine our eternal destinies.

HEAVEN BACKED WORDS

When we received Jesus as our lord and Savior, it wasn’t God talking to us that got us born again. It was us talking to God. We heard the gospel and faith rose within our hearts, then we confessed it with out mouths. (Romans 10:8-10)

Faith comes when we heart what God said. The new birth comes when we say what He said.

This process of believing and then speaking has never changes. We see it throughout the Old Covenant, even to the point that it was part of the daily lives of the children of Israel.

In His instructions concerning tithing, God told Israel in Deuteronomy 26:1-5:

“When thou art come in unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance, that thou shalt take of the first of all the fruit of the earth, and put it in a basket, and thou shalt go unto the priest that shall be in those days, and “say” unto him, I profess this day unto the Lord thy God, that I am come unto the country which the Lord sware unto our fathers for to give us. And the priest shall take the basket out of thine hand, and set it down before the altar of the Lord thy God. And thou shalt “speak” and “say before the Lord thy God..”

Notice that it wasn’t enough for the people to take their tithes to the priest. They also had to say some things.

Why would God want them to speak?

The power is not in hearing the gospel. The power is in the words we speak in response to the gospel. God’s power came to save our souls the moment we “said” some things. The power was in our “speaking.”

The same holds true for any area of our lives. The power comes in our “speaking.”

But there is also something else we need to factor into our power filled words.

As in the days of the Old Covenant, you and I have a priest we can go to, and He’s not just any priest. We have Jesus, our Heavenly High Priest!

Hebrews 3:1 tells us to consider the Apostle and High Priest or our profession (or confession), the Anointed One, Jesus.

God appointed, anointed and then sent Jesus to be High Priest over our words of faith. That’s why something we said last week can come to pass this week, next week, and so on. Jesus is responsible for bringing those words to pass.

Speaking about Jesus’ ministry as High Priest, God said, “I will hasten my word to perform it” (Jeremiah 1:12) That means we have all of heaven backing our every word.

But again, understand that Jesus is not anointed to speak words for us and have them come to pass in our lives. No, He has already spoken. He is anointed to see to it that the Word of God that you and I speak comes to pass in the natural realm.

So what you and I need to do is, first, stop saying all the same things the world says, such as “stick out like a sore thumb” or “I’m so sick and tired of this, and sick and tired of that.”

Naturally we would expect people of this world to say things like that. They are living under the curse. That is exactly what they can expect in a life without Jesus. But not us.

If we really believe our words determine our future health, wealth and place in eternity, then we need to stop rehearsing what we don’t want and start talking what we do want.

Second, we need to start filling our mouths with the Word of God.

Psalm 91:2-3 says, “I will “say” of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress; my God; in Him will I trust. Surely He shall deliver thee.”

In other words, the Psalmist was saying, “When I say it, it is a sure thing.”

Granted, we have a High Priest Who can be touched with the feelings of our infirmities. (Hebrews 4:15) But the fact that Jesus can feel our infirmities isn’t going to change them. Only the Word can do that.

Satan has instilled certain habits, including words and saying, into this world, many of which have spilled over into the Church. As a result, our words have been stout against God, keeping Him from doing all that He is anointed to do on our behalf.

The challenge for us is to break out of those habits by changing from negative words, words that are seeds of sin and death, to positive words of truth, words of life. And we do that by keeping the Word of God going into our hearts, and our ears and coming out of our mouths, until it eventually begins overflowing in our lives.

If our words can be stout against God and bring the very power that created all of heaven and earth to a standstill, just imaging what stout words for God can do.

Start creating a better world for yourself today. Start by speaking strong and hard words that are for God, not against Him. Speak words that your High Priest can honor and then bring to pass.

As you do, I guarantee you it won’t be long before you will “stick out” in a world full of sore thumbs.