LET’S PUT AWAY OUR BASEBALL BATS………..
“Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.” Ephesians 4:29………
When someone shared with me how a bunch of people with baseball bats were hanging around her and a friend one night as though they might become violent which could ultimately have been to the point of death, it sounded really scary – and totally foreign. Thank God, I had never experienced something like that. Nor had anyone I had ever known – to my knowledge anyway. But just a little while later, this came to me.
Baseball bats can be dangerous and even deadly if used the wrong way for the wrong reason, and words can be also. Dangerous – and even deadly. We can wreak havoc with our words. We can harm people immeasurably with our mouths. We can destroy possibilities, dreams, hopes, children’s futures, people’s potential, relationships, etc. with the wrong words.
The Lord created us to love Him with all our hearts and others as ourselves. And He desires that we use our mouths to glorify Him, to tell others the Lord Jesus Christ is the only way to an everlasting relationship with God instead of hell and the lake of fire forever apart from Him, and to love and encourage others and to help them to follow the Lord forever. He created our mouths and words for good reasons not bad ones. He didn’t give us mouths and words to tear each other to pieces. But how often do we use our mouths for the right reasons – and how often for the wrong ones?
The Holy Spirit brings strong conviction to me when I hurt people with my mouth, and I need to repent before Him and apologize to the people I hurt. He teaches me by His Spirit through study of the Bible day by day how to use my mouth in a way that brings Him love, honor, praise, and glory – and that shows the love of Christ to others.
Watch your mouth, friend. Use it for the glory of Christ, AMEN!