The words that come out of your mouth determine your ultimate value in the school of success. It is impossible to achieve success without talking about it. This is because the words you speak are seeds. Therefore, you cannot succeed if you don’t speak of success. The more you talk about it, the brighter your encounter with success will be. Let me show you how the words you speak can affect you.

Your Words Are Seeds

The words that come from you are seeds that produce fruits according to their kind.

“This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God.” Luke 8:11

The seed is the Word of God. This means that the amount of God’s Word expressed through your mouth in any area of your life determines your harvest in that area. So, when you fill your heart with words of success and give them expression through your mouth, you are sowing seeds of success. In Genesis 8:22, the Bible says:

“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest… will never cease.”

As long as you do not speak words of success, you cannot see it, let alone enjoy it. Listening to some people talk, it’s no wonder they fail, despite their hard work. This is because even though they may be generous and diligent in their work, they sow seeds of failure with their mouths. But the Bible says:

“Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them.” Mark 11:23

When God gave Joshua the formula for success in Joshua 1:8, He said to him: “…This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth…” There are great practitioners of the Word, but poor speakers. Thus, despite their great actions, they remain small. In the spiritual realm, it is your mouth that gives expression to your choice—”It will be done for them as they have said…“, regardless of what they do. God considers what you say as the conclusion of your expectation.

Do you remember the Israelites when they were about to enter Canaan? God had promised to give them the land, right! In fact, that’s the very reason He brought them out of Egypt: to bring them into a land flowing with milk and honey. But when it was time to enter, the people made their choice through negative declarations.

“But the men who had gone up with him said: ‘We cannot attack those people; they are stronger than we are.’” Numbers 13:31

“All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them: ‘If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this wilderness! Why is the Lord bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?’” Numbers 14:2-3

And what did God do?

“Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Lord, I will do to you the very thing I heard you say: In this wilderness your bodies will fall—every one of you twenty years old or more who was counted in the census and who has grumbled against me. Not one of you will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your home, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.’” Numbers 14:28-30

You cannot enter the land flowing with milk and honey while speaking words of poverty and failure. You cannot keep saying things like: “Do you see the state of the country and the economy? Do you see the devaluation of the naira against the dollar?” You cannot say such things and expect to taste success. The tongue is a small part of the body, yet it boasts of great things! A small spark sets the whole forest on fire (James 3:5). Your tongue can destroy in a short time what has taken you a lifetime to gather.

No matter how many people are unhappy, I will never speak of failure or poverty. When poverty was my closest neighbor, I never addressed it. How much more now that it has left me alone! As long as you don’t speak of success, both in public and in private, you will not succeed. Stop all those secret confessions right now! I command your tongue to be sanctified now so that it does not block your access to the land flowing with milk and honey.

When people ask me: “How are you?” I answer: “Very well!” When our ministry had just begun, some brothers in service long before us used to ask: “How is everything going for you?” Our response was always: “Fantastic! Wonderful!” This answer surprised them, especially since we were always dressed in suits and ties.

One of them once came to request a loan. The amount he asked for was something we had never even seen. But because of what often came out of our mouths, it was impossible for him to believe that we didn’t have such an amount. And in our charismatic way of expressing good words, we told him that we couldn’t give him that sum at the moment. We couldn’t tell him that we had never seen such an amount in our entire lives!

Let me show you other ways in which the words you speak affect your success rate.

“From the fruit of their lips people are filled with good things, and the work of their hands brings them reward.” Proverbs 12:14

From the fruit of the lips people enjoy good things; but the unfaithful desire violence.

“Those who guard their lips preserve their lives, but those who speak rashly will come to ruin.” Proverbs 13:2-3

The reward of the work of your hands is released through the words of your mouth. The reward of your labor will only be delivered to you through what your mouth says. So, if your hands are busy working while your mouth destroys those good results through negative words, you will never taste success. Stop speaking about what you see happening, and instead focus on what is written in the Word of God!…

This text is an excerpt from the book “EXPLORING THE SECRETS OF SUCCESS” written by David O. Oyedepo.

We invite you to read the next article “THE TRIGGERS OF DIVINE GRACE.”