So notice this. He's saying start to speak words that release the life of God to those who hear, or are responding to what you're saying. Now he wouldn't tell us to do that, if it wasn't possible for you and me to speak words that release the spiritual life of God, to encourage, lift up, and refresh, and touch people. Many of you have had an experience where someone prayed for you, or had a prophetic word, and your heart suddenly just felt overwhelmed, as you felt the love of God touch you. You felt the spirit of God flow through that person's words, and impact your life and heart, so you and I can speak words that impart grace, that empower people, release the life of God. Now one of the greatest dilemmas in families is silent men, men who have the power to speak words that could change young people in their thinking, in their outlook, but they don't say anything. So one of the things that God has given all of us the ability to do, is to speak words that can release grace, release the life of God. You don't even know, like you don't feel any different. You're just speaking from your heart. You're speaking the things that you have in your heart, you're speaking out of the life you're living with Christ, and what happens is the words have an effect you just were surprised by.
There's a life flow within your words, because you're joined to the Lord. He that's joined to the Lord is one spirit, so as we speak, words go out. Now the word 'hearer' means someone who's listening attentively. Who is it you listen to most of all? Yourself. The one you hear talk more than anyone in the world is yourself. Is that not true? You're talking to yourself all the time. Thoughts are going through the head, even right now some of you will be thinking, agreeing, disagreeing, feeling hot, tired, thinking about lunch. There's thoughts going on all the time, there's stuff going on. Your mind just doesn't zone out completely you know, there's thoughts going on all the time - about 30 to 40 words a minute I read about. That's an awful lot of words, a lot of words going on inside you, and you're either agreeing with those words, or rejecting those words, but there's a lot of words going on inside you, and some of them you're agreeing with, and many of them you speak out.
Now the ones you speak out, means you've come into agreement with what you're thinking, and they begin to start to impact you. You're hearing what you say. Now if our words have power to impart grace to those who hear them, you have the power to speak words of encouragement and strength into yourself. Now a lot of people say oh, why didn't no one encourage me. Encourage yourself! Well no one's really spoken words that lifted me up. Well okay, do it to yourself! Take God's words, and begin to speak them into your own life. The Bible says when David - 1 Samuel 36 - when David was in this huge problem place, he'd lost everything. In the middle of it all, when everything was disastrous, he strengthened himself. He must have said something. He spoke words that strengthened himself, in his relationship with God, and in his faith, and it turned that day. What a brilliant example, that is of a man who's whole life looks as though it's just gone down the sink hole, and in the middle of it, when everyone is talking failure, defeat, grieving, weeping, he spoke differently. He spoke words that strengthened himself in the Lord.
The result of it was, he heard God afresh, and the direction he got carried him through, and he ended up the day better off than he had been before he heard the bad news. How did he do it? Well you can read that in Bill Johnson's book, you can find some great keys on that, and I'll share some things on that, but we'll talk a little bit about it today, because there are some basic principles you do need to understand, on how to speak words to build yourself up. That'd be a good thing wouldn't it? Tell someone next to you, you need to encourage yourself. You need to encourage yourself. Now a lot of the words we're speaking to ourselves, are kind of just like oh, I need to get that done today. Man, I mustn't forget that. A lot of it's just neutral kinds of words, but there are some other kinds of words which are different, and there are many words we speak which actually are completely destructive to us, and very limiting; oh, I can never do that. Often the first time you ever ask people to do something - oh, I can never do that. Who said that? Who on earth told you you could never do that?