The words that come out of your mouth control your destiny. They affect the realm of the spirit. They bring life or bring death. They can bring healing to your body or keep you sick. In fact, your confession of Christ or your failure to confess Christ out of your mouth determines whether you see heaven or hell when you die!

Proverbs 18:21

Jesus said that what you speak, believing, you will get. This promise in Mark 11:23-24 is not restricted to good things. Jesus did not say that you would receive whatever you said believing as long as it was something good. Like a car, this principle also runs in reverse! If you believe the wrong thing and speak the wrong thing, you are guaranteed to receive the wrong thing.

There are two principles here. The first, in Mark 11:23, is that you can speak to your obstacles in faith and make them leave. If you can speak to a mountain, it is surely easier to speak to cancer, heart trouble, etc., and command it to leave your body. You have the authority in Christ to do exactly that. If you believe this, you will speak to your bodily trouble, and it will have to obey your words.


Few Christians walk in the light of this fact, but we should raise our walk to meet the Bible standard rather than lowering the Bible standard to match our walk.

The second principle, in Mark 11:24, involves receiving from God in prayer. This is another way to be healed. You believe that Jesus has paid the price for your healing, and that healing is rightfully yours as a Christian. God doesn't have to do anything new; he already did all he needs to do. Now you receive this gift just as you received the gift of salvation from hell. If you believe that you receive it when you pray, you will have it, regardless of whether you notice any difference immediately.

The angels of heaven stand ready to back your words. In Psalm 103:20 we see that angels obey God's words. If you speak God's words out of your mouth, the angels go to work to make sure that it comes to pass. However, if you speak something else out of your mouth, the angels are handcuffed, and you can license Satan's forces to work against you!


In Jeremiah 1:12, God says, "I will hasten my word to perform it." The Hebrew word translated hasten in the King James means to watch out for, not just to hasten. In other words, God is watching over his word to make sure that it comes to pass quickly. But where will that word come from? Out of your mouth! God's words are in the earth, but they do not benefit you until you speak them in faith. In Isaiah 55:11, God says that his Word "shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." When does God's Word return to him? When you speak it out of your mouth! 

You could not be saved until you confessed Jesus with your mouth. Romans 10:9-10 says that you believe with your heart and confess with your mouth unto salvation. It works the same way with healing. You believe in your heart that God bought your body with the same atonement that saved you from sin (1 Cor 6:19-20). Then you speak that with your mouth, and healing manifests in your body.


Note that Luke 12:8-9 says that your words decide whether or not Jesus confesses you before the angels! Your words determine your eternal fate! Your words also determine your fate in this life.

How powerful can words be? Words made everything there is! Hebrews 11:3 says, "The worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." Just as God's words framed this world, your words frame your world.

It is important that your words line up with the God's Word. According to God, you were healed by the stripes of Jesus. So it is always correct to say, "I am healed by Jesus' stripes." You agree with God when you say that. You do not agree with God if you say, "I am sick and it doesn't look like things will get any better." You do not even agree with God if you say, "I believe that God is going to heal me." You want to agree with God!


You are not lying when you say that you were healed by the stripes of Jesus, even though your body may not bear witness with this yet! You would be lying if you denied being sick. There is a difference. You are not denying that there is a problem in your body. You are simply stating a higher truth (your redemption) that will overrule the current physical facts about your body.

You may sometimes act like an unbeliever. You are still correct to state that you are dead to sin and living unto righteousness (1 Peter 2:24) even when you just acted like the devil incarnate. You can't deny that you sinned and that the physical evidence would seem to indicate that you are not even saved. But there is a higher truth that gives you victory over sin, and you are correct to say so. The more you affirm to yourself what you have in Christ and who you are in Christ, the more you will believe it and act like it. (If you want a good spiritual exercise, read Who you are and what you have and continually confess those things. It will improve your life.)


It's easy to say, "I have received my healing" around church people of like precious faith. The real test is what you say outside of church! If you don't dare say that you have received your healing by faith, you really haven't received it. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. If you won't say it, you don't really have it.

2 Cor 4:13 is a good indicator of who is and isn't in faith for healing. If you believe something, you will say it. If you wouldn't say it, you don't really believe it yet. Listen to what someone says and you will soon find out what is in his heart.

Your words can corrupt not only your success in life, but also your physical body! In fact, the words that come out of your mouth will defile you more than the food that you put into your mouth (Matthew 15:11). Speaking bad things about others will eventually make you sicker than living on soda, potato chips and chocolate bars. James 3:2-6 contains a strong warning about the way that your words can set on fire the very course of nature in your life. James says that if you can control your tongue, you can rule your entire body. Don't let anyone talk you out of this glorious fact -- you can rule your entire body! In other words, you can make it obey you. James tells exactly how you will do it -- with your tongue!


Think of it! If you speak right things with your tongue, you can stop yourself from getting sick. Kind words can even promote health in others. (See Proverbs 12:18.) If you speak evil with your tongue, you can make yourself sick! This is no great revelation to most modern doctors, who have documented the links between bad attitudes and illness, but this point seems to be lost on many Christians today. (They wouldn't say some of the things they say if they really believed James!)

James also said that no man can tame the tongue. Does this mean we give up and let our tongue become the local sewer? No! There is a way to tame your tongue, but you cannot do it in your own natural strength. It's easy. You lay up God's Word in your heart. Jesus explained this principle in Luke 6:45. Whatever is in your heart will come out. So the idea is to stuff the right things into your heart so that the right things will come out of your mouth.


This is not strictly a New Testament idea. Joshua 1:7-8 makes it clear that this was an Old Testament practice as well -- at least it was supposed to be!

This takes time. There is no shortcut. You must study God's Word and reflect upon it. Only then will it fill your heart and come out of your mouth.

The good news is that this works automatically. Try it and see! The more you put God's Word in your heart, the more it will just come out of your mouth naturally in the face of adversity. You won't have to "work it up."

See also:

Healing does not require great faith