What's in a Word?

Good Morning My Beloved Ones,
  
     I pray that your ears and hearts are tuned to the voice of the Spirit and your feet are quick to follow His direction.

     Today I want to talk to you about "What's in a Word?"  Words.  We have so many of them.  They flow over our gums and out of our lips often before our ears have heard them and our minds have considered them.  What's in a word?  Power.  God spoke the world into existence.  With our words we can bring joy or sadness, inspire or incite wrath, encourage or abuse.  There is power in our words, yet we rarely give much thought to the things we say.
     Consider this:  Jesus is the word made flesh who dwelt among us; the Bible is God's word to us.  A person's word used to mean something.  If a person gave His word, you could count on it - it was his bond.  If the things that come out of our mouths bear the same name as our Savior and God's holy instructions to us, shouldn't they reflect them?  Could that be the reason they are called "words"?  Something to think about.

     I saw a movie recently called 1000 Words, in which a man was connected to a tree and every time he spoke a word, a leaf fell from the tree.  When all the leaves were gone, the tree and the man would die.  At first the man was very careless with his words, but as he started to realize their significance, He began choosing them more carefully.  In the end, the only things he would say were things that were important, meaningful and helpful to others.
     I believe we Christians need to be intentional with the words we use.  We need to think, what do I intend to do with these words when they leave my mouth?  Are they intended to impress someone, instruct, punish, slander, heal, hurt?  What are these words meant to do?  And does their intention reflect Jesus and the principles of God found in the Bible?    Matthew 12:36 says we shall give account for every idle word we speak in the judgment.  The Greek word for "idle" used here means inactive, unemployed, unintentional.  How important our words are!
     I challenge you today, my friends, as I have challenged myself to think before we speak and to use our words intentionally to reflect our Lord and His principles.  If we could number our words like the man in the movie, how much more careful with them we would be.
     I like a quote I heard this week: "Preach the Gospel.  Use words when necessary."  I think those were words wisely chosen.

Be blessed my friends,  Raelynn