In 1 Thessalonians 2:13, what is required for God's word to work in your life? The problem is never the word of God; the problem is faith in the heart. It says: now He said you received the word of God, not as the word of men, but as it is in truth the word of God, which works effectively in what? You who believe - so there must be a believing the word of God, in the heart, for it to actually have impact in the life, and that's where some of the problem is - we believe lots of other things to be true. You see, we know God's word says He loves us. God loves the world, but your heart may believe something completely different; actually I know that in my head, by my heart's saying: I'm unloved. We might see the word of God say: God is faithful; but then your heart is saying: I don't trust anyone, I've been let down too many times. So what is in your heart has to shift, has to change; so notice it says: it works effectively. That word 'works' is the word 'energise'; in other words, God's word can energise your mind, your soul, your body, your spirit. It can do it, but you've got to believe it.
So how am I going to get that to work in my life? God's word has got power to energise me, fill me with life, fill me up! How am I going to do it? I've got to work on heart belief, and I've got to work on speaking the word of God, resting and believing His word, and also making a conscious decision to speak it. Now one of the problems that's come up in the past, with people confessing the word of God, is: they put their trust in confessing, rather than their trust in the word; so they end up striving, and don't get results, and get disappointed. So the key thing is to recognise: God's word itself, carries the power to change you; all that's needed is for me to believe it, and that takes place as I meditate, and embrace it, and declare it, and speak it. So the mixture of meditating and speaking is what causes the word to become alive, and energised in your life.
Train yourself to speak life-giving words. Train yourself. Now why say train yourself? Because the tendency is for us to speak negatively, and live out of feelings. We need to live by faith. It's faith that pleases God. We need to live by the words God speaks, not by experience. You can have great worship experience, you have ones that aren't so good, it doesn't really matter. God never changed; I can still trust Him, still walk with Him. Notice what it says in Ephesians 4:29. It says: now let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but rather that which is good for the use of edifying - that it might what? Now you know this scripture, I want you to think about it - that it might? Minister grace. So what He's saying is essentially this: you have the power, as a believer, to release the life of God into another person - grace, so they become empowered by your connection with Him; or you have the power to defile them, by speaking negatively. He's saying: let no corrupt communication; don't let your words be negative, because you'll defile people, and set them back; but rather choose to speak words that bring grace, and build people up. He says: that way, you won't grieve the Holy Spirit.
One of the reasons so many Christians are not strongly empowered, is simply this: they keep grieving the Holy Spirit, making Him sad. He's there when you went, wherever you went, He was there with you. Whatever you said, He heard you say it; and the word of God says: don't grieve the Holy Spirit. In other words, choose good words. You may not feel like it, but just zip the lip, zip the lip. It means you've got to speak some good things. There's a time to speak honestly, but you have to zip the lip, so we can choose. So here's the thing, here's two things I'd like you to consider doing: number one, start speaking to yourself. Now that sounds crazy doesn't it? Speak to yourself! Everyone's talking to themselves. You're listening to yourself talk all the time, but choose intentionally to speak to yourself. Here's some things you can do: pray in tongues. Pray in tongues, you're speaking the words of God, your spirit becomes energised. That has to be good for you. I love speaking in tongues. I can't do enough of it. Speaking in tongues, you can turn it on and off whenever you want. Speaking in tongues will lift and energise your spirit, it's got to be good for you, got to help you, strengthen you.