LUKE 4:14-22 – “And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and a report about him went out through all the surrounding country. And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all. And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”  And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”  And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth. And they said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?””

COLOSSIANS 4:6 – “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.”

THEME OF THE DAY: SPIRITUAL EXAMINATION.  How does one measure spiritual growth? What is a good barometer of a believer’s spiritual condition? Those are vital questions which are to regularly enter the lives of Christians.  They point us to the necessary spiritual discipline of self-examination.  We must know ourselves and the ongoing process of knowing ourselves to properly understand our spiritual condition before God.  Donald Whitney writes in his excellent book Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life – A more God-centered theologian never lived than John Calvin, yet even he wrote on the first page of his monumental Institutes, “Without knowledge of self, there is no knowledge of God.” Through the knowledge of ourselves and our condition, he explained, we are aroused to seek God. And the knowledge of ourselves and our condition comes through self-examination, spiritual assessment of our walks with the Lord Jesus.

In the process of spiritual examination, we are to bring ourselves face to face with the Lord Jesus.  All spiritual self-evaluations are actually the comparison between us and the Lord Jesus.  Obviously, we cannot do the comparison based on what theologians call “the incommunicable attributes of God” such as omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, transcendence, sovereignty, and self-existence. But we can and must compare ourselves with the Lord’s communicable attributes for they are to be growing in us as we submit to and obey the Word of God under the power of the Holy Spirit.  These would be the Fruit of the Spirit – “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23).

As the Spirit of God develops His Fruit in the heart of the humble, submissive, teachable, and obedient child of God, there will be evidence not only in our inner being but our outward conduct.   One of the areas to examine in ourselves is our speech – “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” (Colossians 4:6). Gracious speech means edifying speech, encouraging speech, loving speech, building up speech, controlled speech, and speech that focuses on the good of others and rarely draws attention to the speaker.   In today’s scripture, the graciousness of Jesus’ speech was affirmed by the crowd who heard Him by God’s standard for all our speech – “And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth” (Luke 4:22). Does that define our speech?  Like Jesus, gracious?  Do people leave conversations with us thinking, “That person talks a lot about themselves” or “That person is like the Lord Jesus”?

Our speech immediately reveals our spiritual condition.  Let’s get alone with the Lord and allow Him to guide us to do some real self-examination of our spiritual condition by an evaluation of our speech!

PRAYER: Lord, put a restraint upon my speech that prevents me speaking words that won’t edify You.

REFLECTION: The quality of our speech is an accurate barometer of our spiritual condition.