The Power of Words: Life and Death in Our Speech

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.”Proverbs 18:21 Shifting gears a little bit today, so bear with me. I had a situation today that came up and my instinct was to let someone have it. I mean I was hot! But I could feel a presence about the situation and I chose to treat it with kind words and an empathetic tone. As it turned out, it worked out great...and that got me thinking. What is coming out of our mouths? The words that come out of our mouth have the power to build up or destroy. We who are created in His image have this powerful gift of using words for the building up of people. But are we using words to build up people or destroy them? What are you posting to social media? Negative words spoken over people in anger and frustration can hurt and cause deep wounds in their spirit. Same goes with what we post on social media. It is, after all, just an extension of our speech. Right?The words that come out of our mouth are a direct outflow of what is stored up in our hearts. Jesus teaches significantly on the importance of the words we speak. A good man speaks good things out of the good stored up in him, and an bad man speaks bad things out of the evil stored up in him. So it matters what we allow our hearts to store and hence our responsibility to guard what we let in. Dig what I’m saying? We need to be careful about the careless words we speak. I’m bad about it, but getting better. Paul urges us to speak only what is helpful for building others up so that it may benefit those who listen and to avoid talk that’s not helpful. So heres the thing I think in a nut shell. When it comes the day we meet our maker, are we ok with giving count for the mess that came out of our mouths here? Remember what we were told as kids. If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. Be Nice, Grace Wins!Peace,