Think right now about the sourest lemon you’ve ever tasted. Picture it in your mind. Pick it up, squeeze it just a little and watch the sour juice just trickle out. Now work up your nerve, put that lemon in your mouth and bite down.

What kind of physical response are you having right now? Your mouth is watering, right? Your lips are probably puckered up like a prune. Science calls that a conditioned response. It’s a physical reaction triggered by a mental stimulus.

Our lives are filled with conditioned responses like that. Every one of us has scores of reactions that, through repeated experiences, have become totally automatic. There are certain triggers you can use that will affect your spirit as surely as the thought of that lemon affected your body. What are those triggers?

Words, words, words!

Words are seemingly little things that produce very big results. They put in motion the inner working of your spirit.

Words trigger faith or fear, joy or despair, courage or discouragement. That’s a spiritual principle and it works all the time whether you know it or not.

What’s all this got to do with conditioned responses? If you start listening to yourself, you’ll find you have many, many phrases and expressions you use automatically, without even thinking. “It’s blue Monday again…. If it weren’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all…. My memory gets worse and worse every year….” The list goes on and on.

What I want to challenge you to do today is to begin turning those expressions around. Pull a new trigger. Start conditioning yourself to respond to every situation with words of faith instead of words of unbelief. Learn to connect faith words with everything you do all day long. Teach yourself to talk in such a way that every situation becomes a trigger to your faith. You’ll be blessed at the difference it makes!

Speak the Word

Death and life are in the power of my tongue. I determine to speak words of life. (Proverbs 18:21)