TOXIC WORDS

One of God’s most beautiful gifts to mankind is speech. Speech distinguishes people from animals. Isn’t it a tragedy that mankind would take that beautiful gift of speech and misuse it by cursing, abusing and misusing the name of God Himself? Some will say, “Well, I just curse a little.” That is like saying, “I just kill a little.” or “I just commit adultery a little.” We are living in a filthy, vulgar, rotten-talking generation. To speak right, we must think right. Rejecting thoughts that oppose themselves to godliness will remove the temptation for ungodly speech.

We need to watch our thoughts for they become words. Our words become actions and our actions become habits. If we can’t say something nice about someone, don’t say anything at all. We should never define a person by their shortcomings; everybody has some assets. Even a broken clock is correct two times a day. Some people are so insecure that they can only feel good about themselves by tearing down others with their criticism. If we look for the best in people and not the worst, we will always find something good in everyone.

Words never die. The Bible is full of stories and instances of false accusations being made against godly people. False accusations can derail a career, disrupt unity and wreak havoc in a person’s life. We need to make sure that we have our facts straight before we accuse another person of anything. Once our words have been spoken we can never take them back. The words we speak and what we think about needs to meet God’s standards and should be acceptable to Him. There is no finer test of true Christianity than the ability to control our words. 

We take poison into our beings when we say or repeat unkind words about others. Speaking without thinking is tantamount to swallowing deadly poison. Now, poison will either kill us or make us deathly ill. We must always assume what we say will be quoted. It is offensive to God and should be to all of us when we worship and praise Him, sit under the teaching of His word, enjoy the fellowship of believers and then we threaten the unity of the Holy Spirit by our words that reveal bitter hearts.

Death and life are in the power of the words we speak. “The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” (Proverbs 18:21) NIV If we use our words properly, there will be a tree of life. But if we use our words improperly, then the result is death. Whichever way we use out tongue we can be sure we will eat the fruit. If the words that come out of our mouths are evil, we know the heart is evil. We do not get bad fruit from a good tree, nor can we have good fruit from a bad tree.  The Bible is very clear. We must master our words. There are no blurred edges. “He who guards his mouth and his tongue keeps himself from calamity.” (Proverbs 21:23) NIV Calamity is a strong word and the Bible uses it deliberately. Calamity means a disaster or dire distress.  King David wrote, “Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips. Let not my heart be drawn to what is evil.” (Psalm 141:3-4) NIV