October 8th, 2026
You can tell a lot about what you really believe by listening to the words that come out of your mouth. We can say, “I believe God,” and genuinely mean it, but when pressure comes, what is already established in our hearts will eventually find its way into our words. Jesus said that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. In other words, our words are revealing something. They are showing us what has been growing inside of us.
2 Corinthians 4:13-14 says, “Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, ‘I believed, and so I spoke,’ we also believe, and so we also speak, knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into His presence.”
Faith has a voice.
Paul said, “I believed, and so I spoke.” What he believed and what he said were connected. That means if we really want to know what has taken root in our hearts, one of the simplest things we can do is listen to ourselves, especially when life isn’t going the way we want it to go.
Jesus said in Luke 6:45, “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”
For years, while my wife was disabled, our family lived through circumstances that were difficult every single day. I loved God through those years. I believed in healing. I believed the Word of God was true. But there came a point when I realized that what I said I believed and what was coming out of my mouth weren’t always lining up.
I remember talking with a man one day and telling him about everything we were going through. I wasn’t intentionally trying to be negative. I was simply talking about life as I saw it. But while I was talking, the man physically took a step back from me. I could tell that the words coming out of my mouth had affected him, and suddenly I heard myself. I thought I was good until I saw that man take a step back.
That moment made me realize something had to change. I couldn’t continue saying that I believed the Word of God while allowing the circumstances we were living through to dictate everything coming out of my mouth. We had developed habits of talking about how bad things were because things had been bad for a long time. After a while, you don’t even recognize it anymore. You can become so accustomed to speaking a certain way that you no longer hear what you’re saying. We had to change the way we talked.
It wasn’t easy because habits don’t disappear overnight. But there came a point when I had to get a bulldog tenacity about it and say, “I don’t want to talk like that anymore. I want to declare what the Word of God says.”
That wasn’t pretending the problem didn’t exist. Biblical faith isn’t denying reality. We knew what the doctors had said. We knew what Julie’s body looked like. We knew what our family was experiencing. But we also knew that if we continued allowing those circumstances to become the only thing we talked about, we were continually reinforcing them in our own hearts.
Romans 10:17 says, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”
We usually read that verse and think about hearing someone preach the Word, and that is certainly part of it. But you also hear yourself. The words that continually come out of your mouth are continually going back into your ears. Over time, they begin forming your belief structure. If all I ever say is how impossible something is, how terrible everything is, how nothing is ever going to change, and how defeated I am, I’m hearing that message over and over again. I’m preaching to myself, and eventually I’m going to believe my own sermon.
What are you preaching to yourself?
This is why our confession matters. The word “confession” simply carries the idea of saying the same thing or coming into agreement. Biblical confession is coming into agreement with what God has said.
We see this clearly in Romans 10:9-11: “Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, ‘Everyone who believes in Him will not be put to shame.’”
Notice again the connection between the heart and the mouth. With the heart we believe, and with the mouth we confess. What is established in the heart eventually finds expression through our words.
Jesus taught the same principle in Matthew 12:33-37: “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
Those are strong words from Jesus. He connects the fruit of a tree with what comes out of a person’s mouth because our words reveal what is being produced in our hearts.
That’s why changing our words isn’t simply about learning to say positive things. This isn’t positive thinking. You can repeat positive statements all day long and never operate in biblical faith. Faith isn’t built on saying what we wish were true. Faith is built on what God has already said.
The goal is to get the Word of God so deeply established in our hearts that when pressure comes, the Word is what comes out. If fear is filling my heart, fear is eventually going to speak. If bitterness is filling my heart, bitterness is going to speak. If defeat has taken root in my heart, defeat is going to speak. But if the Word of God is filling my heart, then when circumstances squeeze me, the Word should be what comes out.
Proverbs 18:20-21 says, “From the fruit of a man’s mouth his stomach is satisfied; he is satisfied by the yield of his lips. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.”
Our words matter. They aren’t meaningless sounds that disappear the moment we say them. Scripture repeatedly teaches us to take seriously what comes out of our mouths.
This is why I’ve learned that I can’t pray someone past their confession. I can pray for a person, encourage them, lay hands on them, and stand with them in faith, but if they continually go back to declaring that nothing will ever change, they are revealing what is still established in their heart. At some point, we have to decide whether we are going to come into agreement with our circumstances or come into agreement with God.
That doesn’t mean there won’t be moments when you struggle. It doesn’t mean you can never tell someone that you’re hurting or ask for prayer. There is a difference between honestly acknowledging a challenge and allowing that challenge to become your confession. You can acknowledge where you are without deciding that where you are is where you have to stay.
The Bible says in Hebrews 10:23, “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.”
Why do we hold fast? Because there will be opportunities to let go. There will be circumstances that challenge what we believe. There will be days when what we see doesn’t match what God has said. Holding fast means I don’t change my confession every time my circumstances change because my confidence was never supposed to be in my circumstances. My confidence is in the One who promised.
So what is your confession?
Don’t answer that question too quickly. I used to think mine was good too. Instead, listen to yourself this week. Listen to what comes out of your mouth when something goes wrong, when you get bad news, when the pressure increases, or when the answer you’ve been believing for hasn’t shown up yet.
What are your words revealing about what is in your heart?
If you hear things coming out of your mouth that don’t agree with the Word of God, don’t become condemned. Do something about it. Go back to the Word and allow it to change what you believe. Faith comes by hearing, so begin filling your heart with what God has said until His Word becomes greater in you than the circumstances around you.
That’s what we had to do. We had to change the way we talked because we were changing what we allowed to live in our hearts. Eventually, we watched circumstances change too. My wife went from disabled to able, but long before we saw the fullness of that change with our eyes, we had to decide what we were going to believe.
Faith has a voice.
The question is whether our voice is agreeing with fear, circumstances, feelings, and defeat, or whether it is agreeing with the Word of God.
“I believed, and so I spoke.”
What do you believe?
Listen to what you’re saying. Your words will tell you.
2 Corinthians 4:13-14 says, “Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, ‘I believed, and so I spoke,’ we also believe, and so we also speak, knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into His presence.”
Faith has a voice.
Paul said, “I believed, and so I spoke.” What he believed and what he said were connected. That means if we really want to know what has taken root in our hearts, one of the simplest things we can do is listen to ourselves, especially when life isn’t going the way we want it to go.
Jesus said in Luke 6:45, “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”
For years, while my wife was disabled, our family lived through circumstances that were difficult every single day. I loved God through those years. I believed in healing. I believed the Word of God was true. But there came a point when I realized that what I said I believed and what was coming out of my mouth weren’t always lining up.
I remember talking with a man one day and telling him about everything we were going through. I wasn’t intentionally trying to be negative. I was simply talking about life as I saw it. But while I was talking, the man physically took a step back from me. I could tell that the words coming out of my mouth had affected him, and suddenly I heard myself. I thought I was good until I saw that man take a step back.
That moment made me realize something had to change. I couldn’t continue saying that I believed the Word of God while allowing the circumstances we were living through to dictate everything coming out of my mouth. We had developed habits of talking about how bad things were because things had been bad for a long time. After a while, you don’t even recognize it anymore. You can become so accustomed to speaking a certain way that you no longer hear what you’re saying. We had to change the way we talked.
It wasn’t easy because habits don’t disappear overnight. But there came a point when I had to get a bulldog tenacity about it and say, “I don’t want to talk like that anymore. I want to declare what the Word of God says.”
That wasn’t pretending the problem didn’t exist. Biblical faith isn’t denying reality. We knew what the doctors had said. We knew what Julie’s body looked like. We knew what our family was experiencing. But we also knew that if we continued allowing those circumstances to become the only thing we talked about, we were continually reinforcing them in our own hearts.
Romans 10:17 says, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”
We usually read that verse and think about hearing someone preach the Word, and that is certainly part of it. But you also hear yourself. The words that continually come out of your mouth are continually going back into your ears. Over time, they begin forming your belief structure. If all I ever say is how impossible something is, how terrible everything is, how nothing is ever going to change, and how defeated I am, I’m hearing that message over and over again. I’m preaching to myself, and eventually I’m going to believe my own sermon.
What are you preaching to yourself?
This is why our confession matters. The word “confession” simply carries the idea of saying the same thing or coming into agreement. Biblical confession is coming into agreement with what God has said.
We see this clearly in Romans 10:9-11: “Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, ‘Everyone who believes in Him will not be put to shame.’”
Notice again the connection between the heart and the mouth. With the heart we believe, and with the mouth we confess. What is established in the heart eventually finds expression through our words.
Jesus taught the same principle in Matthew 12:33-37: “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
Those are strong words from Jesus. He connects the fruit of a tree with what comes out of a person’s mouth because our words reveal what is being produced in our hearts.
That’s why changing our words isn’t simply about learning to say positive things. This isn’t positive thinking. You can repeat positive statements all day long and never operate in biblical faith. Faith isn’t built on saying what we wish were true. Faith is built on what God has already said.
The goal is to get the Word of God so deeply established in our hearts that when pressure comes, the Word is what comes out. If fear is filling my heart, fear is eventually going to speak. If bitterness is filling my heart, bitterness is going to speak. If defeat has taken root in my heart, defeat is going to speak. But if the Word of God is filling my heart, then when circumstances squeeze me, the Word should be what comes out.
Proverbs 18:20-21 says, “From the fruit of a man’s mouth his stomach is satisfied; he is satisfied by the yield of his lips. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.”
Our words matter. They aren’t meaningless sounds that disappear the moment we say them. Scripture repeatedly teaches us to take seriously what comes out of our mouths.
This is why I’ve learned that I can’t pray someone past their confession. I can pray for a person, encourage them, lay hands on them, and stand with them in faith, but if they continually go back to declaring that nothing will ever change, they are revealing what is still established in their heart. At some point, we have to decide whether we are going to come into agreement with our circumstances or come into agreement with God.
That doesn’t mean there won’t be moments when you struggle. It doesn’t mean you can never tell someone that you’re hurting or ask for prayer. There is a difference between honestly acknowledging a challenge and allowing that challenge to become your confession. You can acknowledge where you are without deciding that where you are is where you have to stay.
The Bible says in Hebrews 10:23, “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.”
Why do we hold fast? Because there will be opportunities to let go. There will be circumstances that challenge what we believe. There will be days when what we see doesn’t match what God has said. Holding fast means I don’t change my confession every time my circumstances change because my confidence was never supposed to be in my circumstances. My confidence is in the One who promised.
So what is your confession?
Don’t answer that question too quickly. I used to think mine was good too. Instead, listen to yourself this week. Listen to what comes out of your mouth when something goes wrong, when you get bad news, when the pressure increases, or when the answer you’ve been believing for hasn’t shown up yet.
What are your words revealing about what is in your heart?
If you hear things coming out of your mouth that don’t agree with the Word of God, don’t become condemned. Do something about it. Go back to the Word and allow it to change what you believe. Faith comes by hearing, so begin filling your heart with what God has said until His Word becomes greater in you than the circumstances around you.
That’s what we had to do. We had to change the way we talked because we were changing what we allowed to live in our hearts. Eventually, we watched circumstances change too. My wife went from disabled to able, but long before we saw the fullness of that change with our eyes, we had to decide what we were going to believe.
Faith has a voice.
The question is whether our voice is agreeing with fear, circumstances, feelings, and defeat, or whether it is agreeing with the Word of God.
“I believed, and so I spoke.”
What do you believe?
Listen to what you’re saying. Your words will tell you.
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