Years ago I was dealing with a really difficult personal situation and I remember telling the Lord, I’d do anything to change. I was in quite a bit of emotional turmoil over a relationship and nothing I tried was setting me free. I even remember telling the Lord, I’d walk to California and back if that is what it takes to see things change. After spending some time in fasting and prayer, the Lord spoke to me and said, “Your problem isn’t your problem.”
I said, “Huh?” Yeah, I know that’s an articulate thing to say to the King of Kings.
He then said, “Your problem isn’t your problem. Your problem is how you see yourself. Your problem is an identity problem, not an emotional problem.”
When He said it, I saw it and things began to change! Here’s the lesson for all of us. Sometimes we make our problems bigger than they are and we think we have to go to great lengths to get the victory. This is not true. Look at Romans 10:6-10:
6 But the righteousness of faith speaks in this way, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ down from above) 7 or, “ ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). 8 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): 9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Paul quotes from Deuteronomy 30 in this passage and makes the point that we don’t have to try to do great things to ascend to heaven to be saved or get a breakthrough. He also says we don’t have to descend into the abyss or suffer great things for Christ in order to be saved or get a breakthrough. The key to change is putting the word of God in our heart that we declaring out of our mouth!
Back to my story. When God spoke to me about my identity problem, I began to declare what the Bible said about me. I said, “I was a new creation. I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. I have the spirit of self-control, etc.” As I declared these things out of my mouth, I eventually began to believe them and the emotional torment I experienced left.
The power to change isn’t found in our great striving to earn things from God and it isn’t found in our great suffering so He’ll finally move on our behalf. The key is discovering the promises in scripture and putting them in our heart and mouth until we see the breakthrough! I hope this article has encouraged you! If you’d like to learn more about the power of words, check out this message I taught at Grace Life Church!
