The noise is getting louder.

We live in a world full of voices making claims. Claims about what car is the most reliable. Claims about which diet plan is the healthiest. Claims about who has the right to what land. Claims about who should lead.

Wars have been fought over such things. They still are.

Those who win take the keys and move in, while the defeated move out or bend their knee to serve.

I’m not talking about cars, or food, or land, or leadership, or politics.

I’m talking about your life.

Because this claim thing, it happens to people’s hearts, their minds, their bodies.

A husband leaves and an unspoken sadness rolls into a home, silently putting down its stakes, toxic claims seeping into the ground: This woman isn’t wanted. These children aren’t worth fighting for.

A bully mocks while other kids look on, stakes go down, claims are heard: Something’s wrong with you and everybody knows it. You don’t belong here.

A little girl is sexually abused by a sibling, and then an older male neighbor; uninvited stakes, foul claims: You wanted this. You’re tainted. Sex is the only way you’ll ever have control…or love.

A middle schooler stumbles upon pornography, he’s curious, he looks, it feels good. Now he’s a man with a family of his own and he can’t stop because the stakes have been driven deep, and all he knows to do is to hide it as best he can.

A teenage girl runs away from home and meets a man who promises fame, money, love. She agrees to do one porn scene. Two years later, she’s calling herself by a different name, and men watch on screens, staking their claim to her body, devouring her with their lust.

So many voices—a cacophony staking claims, “This is mine! This is mine!”

Through the clamor, there’s another Voice. The Voice creation remembers from the beginning, that Voice that spoke nothing into something.

He is the Voice that took on flesh, who spoke to legions of devils, “Come out!” and sent them fleeing into swine. He is the Voice who spoke to the waves, “Be still” and they laid down before Him. He is the Voice who called into dark tombs, “Come out of there” (John 11:43), and the dead breathed again.

He is the Voice who was silent as we drove stakes into His flesh and as the sting of death claimed His life.

And yet, He is the Voice who overcame death as He said He would.

What are the claims being spoken over your life or the lives of your loved ones right now? Call on Jesus whose voice is stronger, surer, eternal. Creation knows His voice. Demons do too. Let His voice speak to you. And dare to believe what He says.

O Jesus, we’ve heard and hear so many false claims about ourselves, about others, and about You. In Your Name, we command those voices to be silent now and to leave us. We close our ears to them now. Jesus, open our ears to hear Your voice. We open our ears to You and we say “Yes!” to what You say.

Friends, if our ministry can help, let us know.

For you,

Josh