Words
Words are powerful. They have the ability to lift a person up or to bring them to the depths. In fact, words can encourage and delight our soul, bringing strength and confidence, or they can crush and blanket our spirit in heaviness and sometimes despair. Proverbs 18:4a says, “The words of a man’s mouth are deep waters…” And Proverbs 18:21 declares that the tongue has the power of life and death. Undoubtedly, this kind of power is not a thing to be trifled with. According to the dictionary, power can exert force or energy; it can influence with strength; create a momentum. Since the momentum, strength, influence, energy and force of our words can go in either direction, I suppose the question would be…how are we using the power of our tongue?
Proverbs 19:1 advises, “Better is the poor who walks in his integrity than one who is perverse in his lips, and is a fool.” Colossians 3 states, “But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds…” (vs 8,9) James 4:11 says not to speak evil of each other. Ephesians 4:29,31 and 5:4 charges the believer to not let any corrupt word come out of the mouth or any evil speaking and “neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting”.
Instead, we are instructed in Colossians 3:16 to, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.” And in Colossians 4:5,6 to, “Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time. Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.”
Today, let’s examine: Do our words bring life? If not, let’s ask the Lord to show us why; then let’s allow Him to change the nature of our words so that we are reflecting our deep love of Christ to all those around us for His glory.
–Katie Botello