Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. That is a phrase that we have heard since we were little. It is good for defense against other children and other malicious people growing up. But the truth is, the consequences for these words are pretty severe.
Matthew 12:33-37 is a huge chapter to me. I am not going to focus on the first part because anyone that knows me knows that I beat that subject into the ground, but instead talk about the end and how it motivated me in life.
So when we look at Matthew 12:37, Jesus is talking to the Pharisees and calling them out on some of their misconduct. Their words were messages of death rather than messages of life.
When I was younger I was pretty talkative. I still talk a bit, but I have learned how to make my conversations more meaningful and to be less directionless speech. I found that when I was directionless or trying to fill space with words, it eventually led to something bad. I never really liked saying negative things to people, I could be good at it if I wanted to, but it never felt right. As I took this verse to heart, words began having so much more of a meaning to me. I stopped trying to be frivolous with my speech, and I decided that I wanted to give words that impacted people… especially positively. That is why often times you will see me hold back on speaking until I have my thoughts together and then I give the most well thought through answer possible. I am not perfect, I am working on it, but that is my goal.
So I am going to ask you this right now, what do your words give? I was planning on closing with this question, but I think it is too important to ignore. When you joke with someone, are you cutting someone down or making them laugh with a positive memory? When you talk, does it have a direction to it or does it just to fill space? Do your words try to build someone up rather than make them feel stupid for what they did? Do your words guide someone in the right direction or does your voice echo anger that makes them fear your wrath? Are you trying to make a friend or are you just stroking the person’s ego to get what you want out of them? Do you tell them that you appreciate them or do you try to make them more like what you want them to be? Do you only talk to the person when things are wrong or do you encourage them when they are doing good? Just a few things to think about.
These are the words that we are judged by. I by no means want to put the fear of God’s judgment into anyone, but for me this is serious. I am planning on being a pastor, and most of what my career will be about is verbal messages to people. If my heart is not right, than I could be misleading so many people. In case you were wondering, yes, God will take issue with that!
I have met too many religious leaders who are charming in public but very impatient and demanding in their offices. My hope is that as a leader, I can be one whose words inspire, motivate, encourage, and challenge my staff and my audience to be healthy and successful Christians and that they would not fear me. Also, I hope in my every day engagements with people that they can walk away feeling that I just breathed life into them.
I would like to close by giving an illustration. Lets say that I gave you an apple for lunch. When you bite into the apple, it is brown and rotten. But you eat it anyway since you are polite, and keep taking the apples. Eventually you will get sick. But if I gave you healthy apples, you would enjoy taking them from me and want return the favor and give me good apples as well.
Words are similar. When we take evil words from people, they make us sick. So that is why it is important that we continue to give healthy life giving words to others, and receive healthy words from those close to us. In the end, it is these same words that we will be held accountable for.
