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The Sword of the Spirit

"The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, 'Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.'" -Revelation 1:14–18

In John's vision of the risen and glorified Christ, He is holding the power of life and death not in His hands, but His mouth.


To the risen Jesus, all of the powers of hell can and will be defeated by His Word. Not by a sword wielded, but by a word spoken. The Jews in Jesus' day were expectant that the Messiah would come in the form of a military leader to overtake Rome, and even the disciples who knew Him most intimately were under this impression, and, no doubt, assumed they would be fighting on the battlefield alongside Him. I'm sure many of them thought Jesus' invitation to come would lead them to the frontlines instead of a dinner table, eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners.


However, I believe there is still much truth found in the disciple's assumptions (they were, after all, formed because of the prophecies in the Old Testament). Every word Jesus ever spoke were fighting words, none returning empty but fulfilling His purposes. Every word of peace and healing He ever spoke was in and of itself, a piercing stab at evil.


"Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits." -Proverbs 18:21

A sharp two-edged sword...death and life.


Our words, too, then, are fighting words. But for whom are we fighting? Often we make the enemy out to be a friend who hurt us, the people with different opinions, et cetera, which causes our words to get a little sharper, a little more deadly, and we waste a whole lot of breath fighting for the wrong thing.


Paul writes, "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." (Eph 6:12)


Jesus has granted us much authority, and we too hold a sword capable of life and death.


I don't take blaming things on the devil lightly, and I only give him credit where I know it is due, and I feel I must do so here:


The devil realizes the authority we, as believers and followers of Jesus, have in our words and will stop at nothing to try to get us to waste our breath on the wrong fight; I believe he tries to tempt us into speaking more empty and hollowly, getting us to talk more about ourselves, less about the King, more about the world, less about heaven.


Sometimes we see the rotten fruit of this not just in blatantly evil words, but in the lack of Truth in our words. After all, Jesus says "I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak" (Matt 12:36). Did you catch that? He doesn't say every wicked word, but every careless word. Every word that doesn't matter, every word that doesn't yield life and fruit from the Vine.


And so, do not be conformed. Fill your heart and mind with the Word, and "... out of the abundance of the heart [your] mouth speaks" (Matt 12:34).


Jesus has given you words that are more than puffs of air; He has granted power and truth and life in His name. Speak it.


"For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart." -Hebrews 4:12

The word of God is living and active, and for those who are in Christ Jesus, the sword is in you ("...take...the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God..."(Eph 6:17)). The same sword in the mouth of the Creator of the universe is the same sword He has given you. Rest assured, this is the Sword by which all the powers of hell will kneel over and die.


And so we are, as the disciples thought, in a fight, but it is one in which our enemy has no sting (1 Cor 15:55), where Christ has the final word, and where we are more than conquerors "through Christ Jesus who loves us" (Rom 8:37).


The ancient Hebrew word we translate as "meditate" literally means to "mumble", so when the psalmist writes in Psalm 1 that the wise man's "...delight is in the Lord’s instruction [word], and he meditates on it day and night", he is saying that the Word of the Lord is always on his lips and the tip of his tongue, the fruit of a heart full of His Spirit.


Speak with the authority Christ has given to you. Utter it. Pray in it. Rest in it. Wield the sword of His Spirit intentionally, not giving yourself over to idle and empty words, but to the fullness and life and truth.


"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. 'For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it." -Isaiah 55:8–11

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