Who Controls You?

The preacher came to call the other day.

He said at my age I should be thinking of the hereafter.

I told him, "Oh I do it all the time. No matter where I am - - in the kitchen, upstairs, in the living room, or in the garage, I ask myself, "Now, what am I here after?"

Will you bow with me for a Word of Prayer?

You know, last week we came together and declared some things in the name of the Lord – I want us to stand together this morning and remind ourselves of just WHO we are in Jesus Christ:

I am the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ.

I am who God says I am.

I can do what God says I can do.

God wants to prosper us not to harm us!

He has a plan for us! He says that we are the head and not the tail!

We are blessed in the city and blessed in the country!

We are blessed going in and blessed going out!

He wants to bless our storehouse and everything we set our hand to!

He says He will defeat our enemies!

Amen!

You know, my Mama used to tell me, “Tex, if you don’t have anything nice to say – then don’t say anything at all!”

Have any of you ever heard that?

I like the way that sounds – we ought to listen to our Mama’s! Don’t you think?

We ought to listen to the Word of God too! We don’t pay enough attention to the words we speak over our lives and the lives of others – we ought to guard our acid tongue a little better! For some reason – we have no problem coming in here singing praises to God on Sunday and letting the same tongue that praises God spit out words that only Satan would be proud of on Monday through Saturday!

Proverbs 18:20 tells us that “A man’s belly shall be satisfied with the fruit of his mouth; and with the increase of his lips he shall be filled. Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.”

You are going to eat the fruit of your tongue! You want a helping of LIFE? Or a helping of DEATH?

If you don’t have anything nice to say – don’t say anything at all!

As we come into this place where we begin to open our eyes to the Blessings of God through Jesus Christ – as we proclaimed this morning – we are the righteousness of Christ Jesus Who lives in us! As we come into this time of awareness of who we are in

Jesus, we need to remind ourselves of who we AREN’T!

And as we come into this awareness we need to begin to walk and talk – with the love of Christ dwelling in us.

Turn with me this morning to Colossians Chapter 3

Romans 6:16 says “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to who ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?”

Every day we have a choice – WHO am I going to serve today? Shall I serve Jesus with my word and actions? Or shall I let Satan rule over me? Every word and every action you take throughout your day should be processed with this thought – with this Scripture in mind.

Colossians 3:1 says, “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.”

Church, if we are going to become the lighthouse for Knox City, Texas – we are going to have to get these things into our hearts! We are going to have to quit talking about it and start doing it! We ARE risen with Christ as believers in Him – so we need to start letting others SEE Him in us! There is no excuse for being under the influence of Satan!

There is no excuse for using the words that Satan puts in your head to use! I’m not just talking about vulgar language – but of words that are used to tear down instead of build up! If you can’t say something nice, then don’t say anything at all!

Verse 8 tells us: “But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Lie not to one another, seeing ye have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put on the NEW man…”

Psalm 141:3 says – “Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips.”