Manna Monday | the power of words

So one of my favorite scriptures is out of Proverbs. It's Proverbs 18:21, and it's the power of life and death is in the tongue. And what we know is that both scripture and neuroscience show us that what we speak shapes who we are. What we think and what we speak literally shapes who we become. And it may seem a little bit out there for some, or this is a new concept, but I would just challenge you this week to speak life, even when you don't feel it, even when you feel anxious or depressed.

James 3:4-5 talks about how the tongue is small, but it actually can steer the whole body. And I just wanna encourage you to start speaking truth even before you feel it. And that's not being fake, that's walking in faith. When we look at the power of the tongue, the power of life and death being in the tongue, what are you speaking over yourself on a day to day basis? You know, take inventory.

Are you calling yourself a loser? Are you calling yourself shameful? Are you beating yourself up? This world has a way of beating us up enough. And to be honest, it doesn't need you to help it out.

By any means, can you at any time turn around this idea of negative self thinking into positive affirmations? And I love to use scripture to affirm what is true about my life or what is true about my identity or what is true about me as a child of God. So what do we do? All right? How do we make this practical?

One, just become aware. Aware of negative self talk. And instead of negative self talk, preemptively have a scripture or a thought about yourself this week. So for instance, you can borrow this. "I am healthier than I think I am."

"I am healthier than I think I am." That's a great just thought. If you feel like you're battling sickness and disease, and it's like, I'm never gonna get better, just speak over your body, I am healthier than I think I am. You can practice when instead of saying, I'm overwhelmed, you could say, "hey, God is my strength and I have everything that I need in Him," right? So turning around these negative thoughts and putting in a positive affirmation can truly set a new neuroplastic pathway in your brain.

Positive affirmation, positive thoughts, positive thinking can come out of scripture and support a new way of thinking. 2 Corinthians 10:5 says to take captive every thought. Literally, to take captive every thought, to make it obedient to Christ. We can have so much power over our thinking. And so when this week you're hearing these negative thoughts, take them captive, stop the thought, and retrain it with a new neural pathway through repetition.

Repetition is learning. And so we need to say it over and over again, so it becomes our new way of thinking. Pick one truth or one verse, repeat it 10 times a day, every day for the next thirty days, and you'll start to think different, and you will literally start to become a different person for it. Let's take captive our thoughts this week.