Recently I was very inspired by a devotion written by Rick Renner from his book, Sparkling Gems.  Below are some excerpts from his teaching as well as my thoughts on this.  I pray it will make a difference in your life as it has in mine.  Some of the principles may be familiar to you but it is always good to go back to the Word of God. What does God say about what we say?

Hebrews 10:23 “Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; for He is faithful that promised.”

Amplified version ”So let us seize and hold fast and retain without wavering the hope we cherish and confess, and our acknowledgement of it, for He who promised is reliable, sure and faithful to His Word.”

Pastor Renner writes:

Years ago, I was staying at a pastor’s house while I was preaching in his church. The first day I slept in his home, I became very frustrated early the next morning. About 5 a.m., the telephone started ringing and it rang and rang and rang. I began to count the rings thirty rings, forty rings, forty-five rings. Finally on the fiftieth ring, I got up, put on my clothes, and walked down the hallway to the kitchen, mumbling to myself, ‘If no one else cares enough to get up and answer this telephone, I’ll do it!’

I picked up the receiver and said, Hello. But to my amazement, the phone just kept on ringing, even though I was holding the receiver in my hand! Then I noticed that the ringing wasn’t coming from the telephone at all, but from something to my right that was covered with a big white sheet. I pulled the sheet back to look, and there in a big cage was a Grey African parrot looking back at me! It had been mimicking the ringing of the telephone! That parrot sounded just like a telephone, but it was not a telephone!

As I walked back down the hallway to my bedroom, I started thinking about how that parrot reminded me of some people I knew!  I’m talking about people who made what sounded like great faith confessions, but who weren’t really in faith at all. Their words sounded right, but they weren’t doing anything but parroting what they had heard someone else say or do. Because there was no faith backing up their words, their confessions were no more real than the ringing telephone coming from the beak of that parrot!

Profession/confessing means repeating what someone else has said.  Professing comes from the Greek word meaning Homologia.  “Homo” means to say the same thing.  “Logos” means words.

The word profession used in Hebrews 10:23 is not the picture of a person who simply repeats or parrots what someone else says.  This is a person who has gotten God’s Word into his heart and who has come into agreement or alignment with what God says.

He sees a matter as God sees it.

He hears it like God hears it.

He feels it like God feels it.

“Now his heart and God’s heart are so unified on the issue that their hearts are nearly beating in syncopation with each other.  Thus, when that believer opens his mouth to confess God’s Word, his confession is no longer powerless, empty chatter.  Instead, it comes from a very deep place of conviction inside the heart.”

Thus, Hebrews 10:23 carries this idea –“Let us come into agreement with God and then begin to speak what He has said, holding tightly to what we confess and refusing to let anyone take it from us.”

“Real confessions are made out of words from God’s Word sown into the heart.  After a period of meditating and renewing your mind, you will finally begin to see it the way God sees it.  You will really believe what God believes, and from that heartfelt conviction, you will then begin to speak and declare your faith!”

“It is not just repeating what someone else has said.  That is a mechanical confession, and gets no results—only disappointment!  True confession must come from the heart before it can come from your mouth.  They must be connected!” How do you avoid making mechanical confession?

1.  Make certain you have chosen to believe what God says.

2.  Ask the Holy Spirit to make God’s Word, Logos, real to you; a Rhema word from His Word.

3.  Study and meditate in His Word until you and Father God think alike.

When you begin to think like God by studying and believing His word, it will become your core belief system.  Your words are powerful and impactful – either for the positive or negative.  Scripture teaches us that death and life are in the power of the tongue.

Proverbs 18:21 “Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.”

When you agree with the enemy’s lies and start speaking doubt, fear and unbelief, it can attract negative things into your life.  However, if you agree with God, He is the source of life and His words are life-giving.  God instructs us to “choose life” and I believe that is for every part of our being. Your words are powerful.  What is in your heart will eventually come out of your mouth, so stay in agreement with God’s Word and speak life!  Speak and declare your faith and watch it work for you!