[Steve Myers] How powerful are the words that we use? I was thinking about this the other day and remembered the story of creation. Do you remember the story of creation? If you go back to the beginning of the book of Genesis, when God created things, it tells us that He spoke. In fact, I was reading an article about that Hebrew word for “spoke”, and it seemed to indicate that every time someone speaks in the Old Testament – whether it’s God, or whether someone’s speaking to another person – that they use the word “spoke”, and then they quote whatever that person said. And so it becomes a very interesting concept to think that this physical world came into existence by the word, by the spoken word. In fact, Christ, before He became Christ, was known as the “Logos”, “the Word”. And so each day of creation, God spoke, and another part of the world came into existence.

Think of the power of words. It created this world, this universe. And it also impacts us. It impacts our relationships. God’s word had the power to bring about the creation. Our words can also be creative. But they can also be destructive. And so we have to be careful about the power of words.

In fact, the Proverbs say a lot about the things that we say. Notice this particular passage in Proverbs 18:24. I’m sorry, verse 21. Proverbs 18:21. Here’s what it says about the power of our words. “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” In other words, there’s consequences that come because of the things that we say, and the way we relate to people and the way we express those things. God’s expression in creation was that He brought things into existence. His creative powers were expressed through the word. And we can do that very same thing. Or on the other hand, the negative side of things, has difficult consequences.

In fact, just a couple of pages before this, in Proverbs 16, we read in verse 24 – now we have verse 24, there. In Proverbs 16:24, it says something that is very powerful. It says, “Pleasant words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the bones”. You see, that’s God’s intent when He speaks to us. His intent is for the best. It’s a positive, powerful thing.

And I think that’s something that we can think about. Think about the power of our words. We have a tremendous power in the things that we say because they’re a reflection of what we actually think. So let’s make it our goal to fulfill what it says here in Proverbs 16 – that our words can be pleasant words, our words can be a sweetness, they can be a very good thing, they can be something that are creative and build up rather than tear down. So let’s make that our goal to be a sweetness to others through the power of our words.

That’s BT Daily. We’ll see you next time.