The Power of Words

I think of all the leaders and "mentors" I had who continually spoke words of encouragement to me, calling out the things they saw in me, and saying “you can do this…” I didn’t always believe them, but there were 3 options:
1) they saw something in me that I didn’t see
2) they knew the power of their words and that if I heard it enough, I would begin to believe, and make it true
3) I could ignore them, but that's hard to do when you hear it over and over.

What about the opposite? When a child hears over and over that they are bad, worthless, a mistake, failure, etc. Eventually they believe these lies to be true and act on it.

In class today we watched video clip about children in Africa accused of being witches. They live in a culture that is very aware of the spirit word and afraid of demons. Leaders of groups who claim to be followers of the Father, say the kids are witches. This whole situation is a violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of a Child, and an example physical, emotional, verbal, and spiritual abuse. If the families will pay $50, the "leader" will “cast out the demon” by torturing the child. For one thing, the Words says “they will know who we are by our love,” obviously these “leaders” aren’t really followers of the Father, because they are not acting like Him.


Throughout history the enemy has sought to destroy whole generations. In Moses’ day pharaoh had ordered all the babies to be killed. When the King Herod heard The Son had been born, once again the babies were killed. It continues today in the form of abortion, or accusing children of being witches. The children don’t understand, but think they must be a witch because that is what people say, and they have to suffer the abuse to be free.

In class today we talked about connecting the Word with the context we are working in. So for one thing, we know that all people, including children, are made in the Father's image (Gen 1:26), and "whatever you do to one of the least of these, you do to Me" - Jesus (Mat 25:45). I don't think it's a good idea to abuse Him.

In Jer 29:11 the Father says “for I know the plans I have for you plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give a hope and a future.” That’s the truth. Even if the children did have demons, abuse isn’t going to make it leave, the only answer is to know the Father. Christ talked about that a couple weeks ago: “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free” (John 8:32). The Son is the Truth, so to know The Son = freedom.