people never forget…

another reason why we shouldn’t judge or slander others is because it’s unloving.

james 4 verse 11 (niv), …anyone who judges…speaks against the law…  is it illegal?  is there a law against judging in the united states? 

no, then what law is it i’m breaking?  james mentioned it earlier.  he mentions it two or three times in the book.  james 2.8 (niv), if you really keep the royal law found in scripture,“love your neighbor as yourself”...  james says if you do this you’re doing what?  when i judge you i’m breaking the royal law – the law of love – love your neighbor as yourself.

we say,  “it’s just words and people will forget them.”  people never forget words.  you always remember them.  it's unCHRISTian and unloving.

just a thought from the front porch…

your words set off a chain of events…

james 3.5-6 (niv), consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark.  the tongue also is a fire.  it sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.

on a more personal level of inflammatory statements setting off a chain of events, you come home from work and you’re tired and grumpy and cranky.  you walk in and yell at your wife and she yells at the oldest kid and the oldest kid yells at the baby sister and the baby sister goes out and kicks the dog and the dog goes and bites he cat and the cat comes in and scratches the baby and the baby bites the head off her barbie doll.  wouldn’t it be a whole lot simpler if the husband just bit the head off of the barbie doll himself?  chain reaction, the course of hell.

itself set on fire by hell.  a couple comes in for counseling.  “i said this and then she said that, then i said this…” then what happened?  “all hell broke loose.”  our words can cause “all hell to break loose.”

james says you’ve got to learn to manage your mouth, not only because it can direct you where you go but it can destroy what you have.  you can loose your family, your kids, your career simply by what you say.  it’s like a fire.

just a thought from the front porch..

my words direct where I go…

so why must i watch what i say?  “why must i do that?  it’s only words, i’m just kidding.”  words are significant, says james. 

one reason why we have to learn to mange my mouth is because my tongue directs where i go.  it has tremendous influence and control in my life. 

where are you headed in life?  where are you going to be in ten years?  look at your conversation.  what do you like to talk about?  what do you talk about the most?  we shape our words and then our words shape us.

james says, the tongue is small, it’s tiny and because it is tiny we think it is insignificant but it has tremendous power.

consider a bit in a horse’s mouth.  james 3.3 (niv), when we put bits in the mouths of horses...we can turn the whole animal.

you’ve got a huge stallion, 2,000-3,000 pounds, and a 95 pound jockey on his back but the 95 pound jockey can control that tremendous mighty animal by a little piece of metal stuck strategically over his tongue.  likewise your tongue controls the direction of your life wherever you want to go.  a little bit of a word or a phrase can influence the total direction of your life.

just a thought from the front porch…

the most powerful tool we have…

remember the story in the old testament of the tower of babel that building project that GOD stopped because they were so prideful.  HE stopped the project by taking away their most powerful tool.  HE didn’t take away their hammer, HE didn’t take away their chisels.  HE took away their words. 

words are the most powerful tool that we have.  you can use them to build.  you can use them to tear down.  “sticks and stones may break my bones but words can…”  words can hurt a child’s heart.  words can shatter a husband’s dreams.  they can crush a wife’s self image.  or you can use same things – words – to build another person’s life.  do you realize the power you have this week to change somebody’s life?  with what you say, a word of sympathy, just looking them in the eye and saying i understand what you’re going through.  or maybe saying, i don’t understand what you’re going through but i care about it even though i don’t understand it.  or saying to them i love you.  you have the power to change somebody’s life with a word this week.  who is it?  take a minute to write it down.  who will i bless with a word of sympathy this week?  i won’t give up on you?  who needs to hear that word from you?

you bless people when you show courtesy, mercy, sympathy and you bless others when you speak honestly.

that means you talk about a problem in the relationship that you’d rather not talk about.  if you’re serious about blessing other people you must care enough to tell the truth even when it’s painful, even when it’s inconvenient, even when you’d rather ignore the problem and sweep it under the rug.  you do it because you value the person in the relationship. 

listen, most people, even married couples, have nobody in their life who loves them enough to tell them the truth.  they don’t have them.  they don’t have anybody in their life who loves them enough to say, this is out of whack in your life and you need to work on it.  people know what needs to be said, everybody in the office knows what needs to be said to that person but nobody is willing to say it. 

millions of relationships are destroyed by dishonesty.  i couldn’t tell you the number of couples that i’ve met who have been married 20, 30, 40 years or more and are still living at superficial level in their relationship because everybody just wants to “make nice, don’t rock the boat”.  we all know that there’s an area in our life that we need to talk about but we don’t want to talk about.  it’s the elephant in the living room.  what elephant?  i don’t see it!  so we live in total denial.  and there are areas of your life that you are chicken to talk about.  you’ve decided whenever we bring this up it causes pain in our relationship so we’re just not going to talk about it.  that closes a door to a deeper level of intimacy. 

just a thought from the front porch…

help and heal or hurt and harm…

we just finished looking at the lives of jacob and joseph in the book of genesis in the bible.  one of the areas we looked at was the area of blessing.  now GOD still blesses today.  HE doesn’t bless you just so you can feel good.  HE blesses you so you can help others.  HE wants to use your life. 

now one of the areas that we can bless others is with our words.  proverbs 11.11 (ncv) says this, good people bless and build up their city.  but the wicked can destroy it with their words.  you and i’ve got a choice.  we can either build up or tear down.  with our words we can develop or destroy.  we can help and heal or we can hurt and harm. 

GOD wants to use your mouth as an instrument to bless other people.  but HE doesn’t force you.  you get to choose.  proverbs 18.21 (msg)  says, words kill and words give life.  they’re either poison or fruit.  you choose. 

do you want to guess how many words there are in the english language?  eight hundred thousand.  do you want to guess how many words the average person uses in a typical day?  five thousand.  any one want to guess how many men use?  eight hundred – right.  so let’s look at some ways you can bless people with your words.

one is pretty self-evident.  it’s pretty simple to understand.  you bless others when you show courtesy.

with all the rudeness in our society and people being rude at an all time high, just being polite to people blesses others.  the bible says in titus 3.2 (Gw), believers shouldn’t curse anyone or be quarrelsome but they should be gentle and show courtesy to everyone.”  just being nice to people blesses people. 

the bible says in 1 peter 2.17 (ms), treat everyone you meet with dignity.  who are you going to meet this week?  you’re going to meet clerks, you’re going to meet waitresses, you’re going to meet bosses or employees, you’re going to meet people in your neighborhood.  all kinds of different people are going to come across your pathway.  it says treat everybody you meet with dignity.  not just those you agree with, not just those you like.  but everybody.  the bible says in romans 12.10 (gw), excel in showing respect to people [each other]. 

think of somebody right now that you could show courtesy this week.  try to write down a name.  a neighbor, a clerk, a mail carrier, somebody you get gas from or somebody that comes in your pathway.  somebody you think, “i could be a little bit nicer to that person.”

just a thought from the front porch…

four words that change things…

don’t hang around angry people. some of you might be thinking, “what if the angry person is somebody in my family? how do i handle this?

that’s an honest question. what if it’s my husband/wife, how do i deal with that? the bible has an answer for this, too. it tells what to do in our closest relationships to make sure that anger doesn’t continually happen in those relationships. this is a great verse for you to memorize. proverbs 15.1 (msg), a gentle response diffuses anger, but a sharp tongue kindles the fire. this is a verse that you want to use toward yourself – internally.

in the midst of an argument, you want to use it for yourself, not like on someone else. you don’t look at someone else and say, a gentle response diffuses anger.

gentle does not mean be quiet. you can be quietly sarcastic or harsh and cause just as much anger. in your relationship, let’s say you are the quieter one when you argue. but you can be just as harsh. there’s a word that i can use – a single word – that can push my wife, margaret’s buttons. it is when i say “dear!” there’s nothing at all gentle about that as quietly as i might say it. gentle does not mean quiet. it means humble. it means i’m thinking about the other person in this moment. it means i’m taking just enough of a step back and thinking what might they need.

that means that in dealing with anger there is a loving phrase that we need to learn to say – “i could be wrong.” try that just once this week and see what happens. see how it changes things.

just a thought from the front porch…

our words are an overflow of our heart...

JESUS said if you want to have great communication you’ve got to guard your heart. it’s one of the keys. JESUS said that words are never a slip of the tongue, they’re always an overflow of the heart. that’s what he meant when HE said, the mouth speaks the things that are in the heart. matthew 12.34 (ncv),

i may not have wanted to say it, but i felt it or i wouldn’t have said it. communication starts with what i think and what i feel. if i guard that, i’ll talk in a better way.

do you ever let your thoughts leak out into your words? you didn’t mean to. you weren’t going to say it but you got angry or something happened and it just came out.

we’ve all done that. that’s what JESUS is talking about. in fact, JESUS said it’s inevitable. eventually it’s going to happen. part of great communication is guarding your heart. telling yourself, “if i think it, i’m eventually going to say it.”

the truth is, for many of us, we will never experience, in the way we communicate, a real change in our relationships until we’ve had a change in heart because that’s where it begins.

just a thought from the front porch…