Pleasing God, Making Disciples of Jesus Christ

There Are No Private Conversations

MATTHEW 12:36 – I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak.”

 

THEME OF THE DAY:  THERE ARE NO PRIVATE CONVERSATIONS. First, let’s establish something very important.  Our speech, the quality of our words spoken, is one of the most accurate and clearest measuring tools of our spiritual condition. We may be as faithful as faithful may be to church, in our serving the Lord, prayer, Bible reading, and acts of benevolence, but if our speech betrays our profession of faith in Christ, all those things matter not.  And what would a tongue not betraying a profession of faith look like?  Let me offer three portions of scripture without comment that shows the positive, an affirming of speech matching profession, and the last one, that really stings like a bee, defining the negative – what a betrayal of profession by speech is.  They speak for themselves.  Use them as tools of self-examination.

 

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice (Ephesians 4:29-31).

 

Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander (1 Peter 2:1).

 

Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person (Colossians 4:6).

 

Whoever utters slander is a fool (Proverbs 10:18b).

 

Those are very probing verses.  We each should find ourselves like the disciples at the Last Supper when Jesus says, “One of you will betray Me” and all of them said, “Is it I, Lord?”  Take time soon and ask the Lord to search our hearts for the quality of our speech toward and about people, especially His people.  Yes, the heart because Jesus reveals where our speech originates and it is not our tongues – For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (Matthew 12:34b). So if we want grace-filled speech, we need a Holy Spirit, Word-driven heart, but there is something else about today’s nugget beyond self-examination of speech.

 

In today’s scripture, Jesus reminds, even warns us, that a day is coming, the Day of Judgment for all, when the quality of our speech will be judged. And not generally, but specifically.  The Lord said, “Every word will be accounted for.”  That is serious and needs to be seriously thought of and applied in all our conversations. Daily.  And what might the application be?  The theme of today’s nugget – There are no private conversations.

 

Learn to live in the constant Presence of the Lord Jesus, not an always felt Presence, but a real Presence.  Such thinking and living will make us remember that He is in attendance and listening to every word we speak in every conversation.  Let this awareness cause us to pause and think before we speak; think, “Would I say this to or about a person with Jesus standing at my side?”  Remember, He is. If we live this, those verses above defining godly speech will define us in our speech.

 

PRAYER: “Father, forgive me for the too many times my tongue is a weapon of destruction instead of balm of healing.”

 

QUOTE: “Our speech is one of the most accurate measuring sticks of our spiritual condition and closeness to Jesus.”

 

Because of Him,

 

Pastor Jim