Today, I’m going to use a couple of familiar scriptures that you may have heard before. I do this on purpose so that you’re not so focused in your “left brain” that you are trying to figure out what the message is going to be about. I don’t want you to just think about what the scriptures say, but are you getting a revelation of the scriptures working in your life?

Proverbs 18:21 – “Death and life are in the power of your tongue, but they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.”

There’re two things you can speak into your life or the lives of other people.

What you sow with your mouth is what you live thru your life. Every time you open your mouth, you are sowing one of two things: either life or death. Those two are polar opposites, like two poles of a magnet always trying to overpower one another trying to gain position in your life. They are at work at all times and are competing for your attention. Life is speaking to you and death is speaking to you. You may ask, who would ever listen to death?

Death is birthed out of sin. Sin is birthed out of temptation. Temptation is birthed out of persuasion, and persuasion comes from allure. Satan was the angel of light, not some little red devil with a pointy tail and pitchfork. He was the most beautiful angel ever created. Sin will look awesome, beautiful, and too good to resist. 

So why the big deal about what you say? The majority of persuasion in your life will come from words: what someone says about something, what someone is telling you about a situation or someone. Next, you have believe or not believe it; approve or not approve; accept or reject it. Embrace it or simply walk away. Those choices will ultimately define your convictions. The choices you make based on the words you hear will define your convictions – what makes you think something is okay or not okay. It all is birthed out of your choices.

Luke 6:45 (NIV) – “A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart…”

We have to assume that what he’s been hearing is good. What he’s been receiving is good, and that good has been stored up in his life, so when it is time to operate in life, he’s able to respond to whatever is going on around him with the good that is stored up in his heart. If you squeeze a lemon, you’ll get lemon juice. However, if you squeeze a Christian, many times you don’t know what is going to come out. So, if there’s good stored up in you when you’re squeezed and pressed, you’re going to make right choices, and many times good things will befall you even out of bad situations.

Bad things do happen to good people. The Word tells us that we are going to go thru afflictions, trials, tribulation and hardships. It’s not so much about what you’re going through; it’s about what is coming out of you through those trials. When you are pressed, stressed and tried, what is coming out? What are people seeing?

Luke 6:45 (NIV) – “…and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.”

I can be with someone for less than 5 minutes, and I can tell you what they’re about. I can tell you where they’re living, and what their heart is about. How? Because, out of the abundance of their heart, that mouth is speaking. People will tell on themselves If you listen long enough.

Proverbs 23:7 – “For as he thinketh in his heart (what he’s full of), so is he (that’s what he becomes)”

So, what you are thinking about what has been said can also have the power to make you into the person you are going to be tomorrow, and the next day, and so on. Out of all this, the two things that can conclusively impact your future, and ultimately determine who you are and what you’ve become: what you say and what you think.

It’s important that you’re watchful about what you allow yourself to speak into your own future and to what you allow others to speak to it as well.

The first step to resetting your future is to talk yourself into the reality that God’s got something far greater ahead of you than what’s in your past. I don’t care what the news says, or how the election turns out, or what is happening in the world. I don’t know if the economy tanks or flourishes – it has nothing to do with Kingdom and it has nothing to do with the promise that God made us. We are in the world, but not of it (John 17:16). We are aliens in this world, and we are here to be light in a dark world (1 Chronicles 29:15). That means that somewhere there has to be darkness. The darker it gets, you turn on more light. So, we aren’t suppose to burn out when the world gets darker. When the darkness comes, that’s’ when we shine.

The more we uphold and stick with what we believe, stay on course, the better our futures become because our hearts are full of what’s good. The Word says don’t grow weary in well-doing, for in due season (my future) we will reap if we just don’t quit.

It’s so easy to just quit with all that is going on. We need to be watchful about what’s coming out of our mouths. What are you saying about your future? You know, God sees more inside of you than you could ever believe for yourself. It doesn’t matter if the people around you see it. It only matters if God sees it, and when He makes a demand upon that gift, what are you going to do with it?

In Matthew 5, Jesus implicitly describes specific attributes of those verses that, when a particular people group would comply with those character traits, those individuals would be blessed. Who is He speaking about?

·       The poor in spirit

·       The meek

·       Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness

·       The merciful

·       The pure in heart

·       Peacemakers

·       Those who mourn

Jesus was talking about you and I. He calls us blessed! Some people don’t know that they’re blessed. The world is living under a curse, and they’re living from the fruits of that curse, but what God has blessed can’t be cursed. It won’t come nigh thy dwelling! And He doesn’t just cover my doorpost with the blood of a lamb, He covers me entirely with the shed blood of His Son – it’s all covered. There’s no deficiency in my life when I’m covered by the blood of Jesus.

I speak to my future differently when I have this reality than when I watch the news or observe whatever is going on in our lives. Those are just obstacles for us to know how to maneuver around to get to the place where God’s trying to get us, so we’ll learn how to take the people in our past to our future.

Jesus said you are blessed. Your parents didn’t say it, your pastor didn’t say it, your friends didn’t say it. Jesus said it! That is good news! When those around you are upset and worried, remind them that they are blessed! Your blessing can’t be affected by what anyone says to you or about you. So what! It doesn’t matter what they called you. Jesus said you are blessed, so who are you going to believe? Are you going to listen to them and be talked out of your blessing or are you going to listen to Jesus and talk yourself into a blessed future? For me, I’m talking myself into a blessed future.

If our blessing comes through Abraham (Galatians 3:13), and he was not only blessed, but blessed to be a blessing, then we are blessed to be a blessing! Now, not only is my future going to be full of God’s blessings, but so are the people that I interact with. The reason you are blessed in the first place is God’s been preparing to use you to make someone else’s life better so they can have a better future. That’s why He blessed you! You don’t have to worry about you or the people around you because the very fact that you’re there, they are going to be blessed too!

Say this out loud: “I’m sowing, then I’m also reaping”. In the process of helping them to achieve a better future, at the same time, God is helping yours. It’s a continuous cycle: you’re blessed (God blesses you), you’re a blessing and because you blessed, God blesses you. It’s a self-sustaining cycle that results in your future being nothing but the blessing of God.

Your heart is full of blessing, your mouth is full of blessing, your mind is full of blessing; therefore, you live a blessed life. When you’re convinced of this and you speak this, then the power of life is working on your behalf. When the power of life is working on your behalf, then the power of death has to relinquish its hold on you and the people around you. It starts with you believing it and confessing it.

You no longer have to stay at the bottom. You can reach for the top shelf. You can have life and have it more abundantly (John 10:10). Jesus didn’t come just so you can have life, you had that before He came. He came to give us abundant life. Everyday is a blessing. Everything that happens to me is a blessing. Everything I have is a blessing. If I don’t understand something and it looks bad, that’s alright because all things are working together for my good because I am called according to His purpose. I love the Lord and am called to His purpose, so I can’t look at what just happened or what people are saying. All I can do is listen to what God told me about who I am and what I’m here for and what I’m doing. If I’ll just keep doing that, I and my future will be blessed, and everyone that’s with me will be blessed, so I am going to live a blessed life. I am talking myself into a better future!

Are you talking yourself into a better life? Are you saying that? Are you telling people that? Are you believing for a good marriage? Why not believe for the best one possible? What about a job? Believe for one that will do the most for the Kingdom. Believe for something that will allow you to be blessed so you can finance Kingdom, not so you can show off your stuff! There’s nothing wrong with having things, but God brings blessing so you can be a blessing to others!

If you’re believing to be used in God’s Kingdom, then believe God to keep your entire focus centered around trying to make people’s lives better. Your whole purpose in life should be centered around making people’s lives better, not making someone miserable, talking about them, cutting them down – that’s not helping anybody.

We are on this earth for a reason – there must be more! Your blessings are to be a blessing – you have to give something away!

Live an abundant life in Christ Jesus! You’ve got to talk yourself into having a better future! Speak about your future stronger than you’ve been talking about your past. The past won’t change, but it can change your future if you continue to talk about it, or if you talk yourself out of what God has in your future.

Instead of talking about how bad it use to be, start talking about how awesome it’s about to get! I’m looking for what God’s doing in my future because I’m reminded of what He’s done in my past!

2 Corinthians 4:13 (NIV) – “It is written: ‘I believed; therefore I have spoken.’ Since we have that same spirit of faith, we also believe and therefore speak.”

You have to speak what you believe what God says about your future. You have to make up your mind right now about how God sees your future. I’m going to ask you one question that stands on the threshold between you and your future:

Is there any sin, action, fault, implication or anything else in your life that is greater than the redemptive power of the blood of Jesus?

If you believe that the answer is no, and that there is no obstacle that the blood of Jesus can’t overcome, then here’s some good news:

·       All the barriers, obstacles, reasons and excuse – gone!

·       All the pain, pressure, agitation, irritation, confusion – gone!

·       All the guilt, shame, embarrassment, harassment, emotional baggage – gone!

Now, there’s nothing that can keep you from walking in the blessing, authority and perfect power of God. There’s nothing that can stop Him from constructing a brand-new future that’s full of His blessings for you

You can either talk yourself into it or talk yourself out of it, but for me and my house, we are serving the Lord. I’m going to go with what He says about it. I don’t want the Lord to be on my side, I want to be on His side!

Where do you want to spend your future?

Speak this out loud:

“No weapon formed against me shall prosper, and every tongue that rises itself against me shall be cast down. So my latter will be greater than my former. My future is brighter than my past. There are far more who will walk with me than those who will walk away. And if God be for me, who can be against me!”

Talk yourself into a better future!