Shut Your Mouth!

There is an interesting story about John the Baptist's dad Zechariah found in the book of Luke 1. As he was burning incense in the temple, an angel of God appeared to him, telling him that his wife Elizabeth was going to bear a son, and then gave him instructions about the things that John was to do and not do.

The angel was Gabriel, and he tells Zechariah that his prayer has been answered and that he will have a son. Wow, that's cool, how would you like to get the answer for your prayer delivered by Gabriel? Anyway, Zechariah listens to what Gabriel is telling him, then answers him by saying, "How can I be sure of this? I am an old man, and my wife is along in age." It is at this point that Gabriel says, "I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time."

Zechariah did what a lot of us do, he chose not to believe the Word of God and what it was saying to him. He did not believe Gabriel's words, and consequently was mute until the time of John's birth. We have a choice just like Zechariah did, each and every time God shows us something in the Bible. We can either choose to believe it or not believe it. The only difference is that we don't have an angel shutting our mouths to keep us from speaking words of doubt and unbelief.

The Kingdom of God works on this principle; you believe it, and speak it and it will come to pass. In Romans 10:9 - 10 we see that if we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead, we will be saved. Because it is by believing in our hearts that we are made right with God, and it is by confessing with our mouths that we are saved. This is how everything works in the Kingdom of God, we believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths and we will have what we say.

The interesting thing is that people want to put everything off on God, and the reason they don't have what they desire is because it is just not His will for their life. The thing that really bothers me about this line of reasoning, is that they don't understand what His will is for their life, and if they don't get something, or see an answer to a prayer they attribute that to the fact that God must not want them to have it. Never mind what the words are that are coming out of their mouths, that part just doesn't figure into the equation for them.

For instance, let's say that I pray for the Lord to help me out of a financial bind that I've gotten myself into. I see in Scripture that it says that God will supply all of my needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:19) Then after I pray and ask Him to help me, I begin to talk about how hard things are, that the economy is bad, my needs aren't being met and I don't know how we're going to make it. What I have done in effect is basically undo all of my praying and believing. Truthfully if I do that, (And I have to be quite honest with you.) I am not believing what the Scriptures say. And so I am getting what I say, not what I pray.

It is really simple to know God's will for our lives, it's in the Scriptures. We just have to choose to believe it and then act on it with our faith. Remember faith is believing what the Bible says is true contrary to what our five physical senses tell us. We're called believers, because that is what we do, believe. But we can't discount our part in all of this, saying the right things, and not just speaking words of doubt and unbelief.

If we can learn this one thing, I believe we will see huge growth in our spiritual lives...I for one need to learn this better, and that's what I'm going to work on this week, watching what I say! Get 'em up folks, let's go out and whip something for the Kingdom this week!