“Get up! Cry out at night, every hour on the hour. Pour your heart out like water in the presence of the LORD. Lift up your hand to Him (in prayer) for the life of your little children who faint from (spiritual) hunger at every street corner.” --Lamentations 2:9, God's Word Edition

"And the words of the LORD are flawless, like silver purified in a crucible, like gold refined seven times." -- Psalm 12:6, New International Version

According to my pastor, with whom I agree, “The work of Jesus Christ is finished. He's already done all He is going to do.”

The rest is up to us. If we want the future to be better, it is our responsibility to shape our children to be their spiritual best, by harnessing the power of our words.

Our words are containers. So we must be aware and extremely concerned about what they contain, for the words we speak directly affect our children’s lives and our own.

One pastor from New York states in a book he wrote that, “...you and I are created in (God’s) image and...by design created also to speak our future into existence....That is why God has told us to speak things that are in agreement with Him —and that we will be judged one day for those times when we have not.” (Mal. 3:13,14; Matt. 12:37)

We parents have the duty and privilege to speak the Word of God over our children daily--both defensively and offensively. Our enemy the devil was defeated over 2000 years ago by King Jesus, Hallelujah!

By speaking the Word of God, we enforce that defeat, and we liberate the LORD—Who is Himself the Word—to perfect His plan in the lives of those we love. It is easy, enjoyable, and empowering to choose to speak the Word over our children daily.

BELIEVERS TODAY ARE KINGS AND PRIESTS In the Old Testament, a father's blessing was priceless, so prized that it could cause men to scheme to steal the blessing from one another, and worse (Genesis 27).

It was a prediction of the future of the one over whom the father's words were spoken. It was one of the most precious legacies a child could receive, perhaps even above the servants and flocks and houses and herds.

In a letter to his friends dated June 26, 2003, one prophet in Texas wrote: "There is power in blessings. In the Bible, we bless God and God blesses us....There is power in the spoken word. Once a word is spoken, the word assumes a history of its own, almost a personality of itself... (and) has the power of its own fulfillment....The Word of God exists as a reality and has within itself the power of its own fulfillment. Formal words of blessing or cursing also have the same power of self-fulfillment."

Today, under the New Covenant created by the shed blood of Jesus the Christ, both men and women who have accepted the LORD Jesus have been made kings and priests (II Peter 2:9), “predetermined...to walk in an exalted status here on the Earth ...as we exercise authority in the Name of Jesus,” according to Pastor Dan in the same book.

With respect to the husbands being the head of their households as ordered by God (Eph. 5:23), the New Covenant empowers the Word of God—the blessing--spoken by mothers over their children to have much impact, perhaps as any their fathers would say, especially in households where the mother is single and the head of the household (Galatians 3:28).

The most important thing is that the children are blessed daily, whether by father or mother, or, preferably, both, for unity is essential to the total success of the family, to the success of the covering--the spiritual protection--remaining intact.

"A break in the covering allows the enemy access to your kids," says a pastor in Arkansas, "but through continual application of and obedience to the Word of God in our lives, that covering can be restored."

As Jesus answered when He was tempted by the devil, "It is written..." (Matthew 4; Luke 4).

The Word of God is not chained, does not return empty, and accomplishes that for which it is sent by God! (Isa. 55:11)

May the LORD help us always leave a legacy of life for our kids!

Tonja and her husband live to exalt God. They lift Him up in books (P.O.W.E.R. Girl!; LEGACY; Visions of the King; Your Holy Health; more); presentations; service in church, community, and the world; and via the "River Rain Creative" (309 videos) and "POWERLight Learning" You Tube channels.