Do you ever stop and think about the words that come out of your mouth? Think about the impact that those words will have on your life, or the life of someone else? I can say that it isn’t something that I always pay attention to and perhaps it has to do with the fact that words are a big component of how we communicate. We (generally) think about whether or not what we are going to say will make sense, whether we are using the right words in the right context, and even how we can be more compelling in what we say. But we don’t often (I don’t think) weigh the spiritual impact of what we say.
And we should.
Proverbs 18:21 (NLT) says “The tongue can bring death or life; those who love to talk will reap the consequences”. The words that come from our mouth have tremendous power to bring life to a situation or person or bring death. We heard that time and time again and yet we usually are very loose with what we say. I think that has a lot to do with the fact that the impact of our words aren’t always immediate or visible. We don’t always know how what we say impacts not only the person we are saying it to but also people who may be listening in on the conversation. We don’t always make the correlation between things we deal with in our lives and the words we have spoken or maybe someone else has spoken over ourselves, our situation, our family. And that can be good or bad. Matthew 12:37 says “For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned." Whatever we say, good or bad has an impact.
So if that is true, our words have the power to bring death or to bring life, how do you think God is calling us to speak to others and about others? What are the ways God wants to use each of us to be vessels of His love and Spirit? What is our natural bent and how can we ask the Holy Spirit to transform our heart and mind so that we reflect Jesus in how we live and speak?
Easy? Not even a little bit. But thank God we have a loving and patient Father.
by Kalesha Peters
