Bitter Words: A 7-Day Word FastSample

You See What You Say

Jesus was hungry. He began looking for food in a place where He expected to find sustenance. Unfortunately, the fig tree didn’t have any figs. So, Jesus cursed the fig tree.

The next day, the disciples were surprised to discover the tree was dead. They realized the tree did exactly what Jesus told it to do. When they approached Jesus about the dead tree, He used it as an opportunity to take the disciples to school and to teach them a much greater lesson about the power of their tongue.

The season had not yet arrived for the figs to bear fruit. The fig tree was doing what it was supposed to do whenever a tree is out of season. Jesus was aware of this when He cursed the fig tree. However, He was teaching the disciples the daily habit of using their words with precision. He was also teaching them that if you are not careful, your emotions can hijack your tongue and cause you to kill something with your words that you should be cultivating with your hands.

There are three takeaways from this encounter:

First, your words will always follow your leadership. Jesus told them, “If you believe what you say, you can speak to the mountain, and it will obey you.” That means you are the commander-in-chief over your tongue, not the other way around.

Second, be careful not to allow your emotions and impatience to dominate you. Jesus was hungry, and the fig tree represented an unmet expectation. Sometimes, our emotions can cause us to be impulsive with our speech. Our emotions should never sit in the driver’s seat of our lives or be given driving privileges because they can steer us to places we were never meant to go.

Lastly, people are always paying attention to how you handle inconvenience. Everyone will encounter a fig tree in their lifetime. Some people more than others. That fig tree isn’t there for you to abuse with your words or to curse away. Sometimes God will allow you to meet a difficult person or situation not to display a deficiency in them but to reveal a deficiency within you. Fig trees will pull out the impatience, immaturity, pride, and selfishness lying dormant within you.

Do you have any fig trees in your life today?

What kind of words have you been speaking over it?

Prayer: God, I bind and break any word curse that may have come from my lips. Reverse the curse that anyone may have spoken over my life. Help me to regulate my emotions today. I declare that my emotions will not rule me nor cause me to compromise my blessings. Amen.