Life Giving Weapons

UV 2003/10000 Life Giving Weapons
And he hath made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand hath he hid me, and made me a polished shaft; in his quiver hath he hid me;
Isaiah 49 v 2

As we hide in the shadow of the Almighty or dwell in His presence in silence, worship, prayer, praise and meditation, the Lord makes us like a sharp double-edged weapon, a life-giving weapon not a weapon of destruction. One side of the weapon or sword is used to affirm the positive or good and the other to negate the negative or evil in life. But with the breath of his mouth, he has the power to defeat the wicked, the ungodly and unrighteous. We become the mouthpiece of God on earth to pronounce deliverance, to comfort the grieving, to encourage those who are broken hearted, to declare healing, to break strongholds. Our words whether we write them or speak them are like polished arrows that penetrate the hearts of the listener or the reader and perform the work of the Lord in their lives.

Since our words are life-giving ammunition or arrows, we should collect it as in a quiver and use it with great care and aim. The tongue is a super-power organ in our bodies. It is the bow string from which the arrow flies. Our minds are the bow itself. Hence, we need to subject our emotions, thoughts and intentions to the disciplining of the Lord. The bow takes a lot of pressure while the arrow is being loaded and aimed. Like the bow, we need to be resilient and be in constant use and readiness to be deployed. Just as our tongues are hidden in our mouths, so also we need to hide or be surrounded by the Lord at all times. We need to be saturated with His word in order to be effective and powerful weapons in His hand.

The words of life that become arrows that penetrate the hearts of people are themselves stored in our hearts. Our hearts are the ordinance factory of words. This is the reason scripture states that the mouth will speak what the heart is full of. We need to constantly ask the Lord to rid our hearts of malice, envy, hatred, bitterness for these are the weapons our common enemy of the soul uses to rob us and our words of the power to influence or build the faith of others. It is not our accents that are to be polished and sound sophisticated but our thoughts, our emotions, our desires.

Prateep V Philip