Like An Architect’s Pencil - The One Year Salt and Light Devotional

Romans 4:16-17

He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not. (Romans 4:17, NIV)

GOD CREATED THE WORLD with words. He spoke, and things happened. The Creator can do whatever he wants, of course, and he has every right to give his speech such power and privilege. His voice is an expression of who he is, and it carries his authority. He used it as his chosen means of creation.

The fact that we are created in this Creator’s image ought to tell us something. Our words are powerful too. They don’t create worlds—at least not in the same way—but they carry authority that we derive from our Father. His Son gave us the keys of the Kingdom, and his Word tells us to be careful about what we say. When our voices spill out the thoughts and intentions of our spirit, things happen.

According to Paul’s words in Romans, Abraham became our father in faith by believing in the God who calls things into being that did not exist. In a sense, we have that opportunity too—first to believe in the words of God over what our natural eyes see (or don’t see), but also to declare what we know to be true, even when it is not yet visible in this world. Like our Father, we are creators too.

That doesn’t mean we can expect the natural world to conform to our every spoken word, but it does mean our voices carry the power to build up or destroy lives (James 3:1-12). They can be used as dangerous weapons or powerful cures—and we get to choose which they will be. By faith, we can speak things that are not yet manifested—the will of God in a particular situation, the light of heaven in dark places, the work of healing in broken and hurting lives—and expect them to come to pass. In fact, this is why we were endowed with the power of blessing. Use it often, and use it well.

{Father, if you will let my words work like an architect’s pencil, I will use them to draw up blueprints of glorious things. May I speak with wisdom and power over the lives around me. Amen.