If you want to hear something tragic about my own life, it’s this. It took me absolutely ages to wake up and realize what in my pride I didn’t think of as gossip and slander was exactly that. In my arrogance, and in my ignorance concerning what gossip and slander really are, I did an altogether rock solid job for an incredibly long time calling myself a Jesus follower but treating people in my heart and with my mouth – particularly behind their backs – in anything but a Jesus-honoring way. Sin, sin, sin. Not only did I need to repent, but my wake up call came up with a follow-up wake up call. Yes, two of them! The second? This.
When we repent and stop gossiping and slandering, when we humble ourselves before God and genuinely commit ourselves to learning to love Him with all our hearts and to love others as ourselves, we have an amazing opportunity to start PRAYING FOR THE VERY PEOPLE WE WERE GOSSIPING ABOUT AND SLANDERING. Imagine. Every negative thing we have thought or spoken about regarding someone else can be turned into an opportunity to pray for them regarding their needs, sins, troubles, struggles, their wrongdoing, their right doing, their challenges, sicknesses, bad manners, absolutely whatever the Lord puts on our hearts to pray for them.
I can’t speak for you, but I can speak for me. I am bound and determined to work hard on thinking about, speaking about, speaking to, and treating people with the love of Jesus and to stop missing my opportunities to love people, to pray for them, to help them, to support them, to encourage them, to serve them, to share the Gospel with them, to point them to Jesus, to help them with the Bible, and to set an example for them by humbly, faithfully, devotedly loving and following the Lord with all my heart and loving others as myself.
Want to join me in this new mission of mine? Please do! Amen!
Oh, Father, I am blown away by your love and mercy for me, and by your amazing patience with me as it took so long for me to come to repentance with this. Please, dear God, use this message in my heart and the hearts of countless others to bring us all to a place of humility and total dedication to you and to your ways and to a resolve that no matter the cost to our flesh we go forward loving and praying for and blessing and encouraging others rather than to any more hurt you in the way we hurt them. Oh, God, forgive us all for where we have sinned with gossip and slander and anything absolutely anything else. Teach us your ways, oh Lord. Please, God, for anyone who reads this message, may you draw them to yourself, save them for eternity, and teach them and me to live according to the leading of your Holy Spirit and the truth of your Word, hallelujah, AMEN! Praise you, dear God, thank you for answering this great cry of my heart, AMEN! I repent, dear God, oh have mercy on me! Oh, have mercy upon us all! Thank you, dear God, AMEN! Father, I didn’t mean to pray only that we don’t hurt you regarding others! That’s most important, oh Lord! But I also ask you Father that you help us to not cause any more hurt or harm to them, dear God!
“He that hideth hatred with lying lips, and he that uttereth a slander, is a fool.” Proverbs 10:18 KJV
“Whoso privily slandereth his neighbour, him will I cut off: him that hath an high look and a proud heart will not I suffer.” Psalms 101:5 KJV
“Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up. Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?” James 4:10-12 KJV
“Set a watch, O LORD, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips.” Psalms 141:3 KJV
“Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.” Ephesians 4:29 KJV
“If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain.” James 1:26 KJV