I used one of the speaker’s best lines in the title of this post. Last night we were in Matthew 12:33-37, when Jesus teaches us that a good tree will bear good fruit and a bad tree bad fruit. The topic for yesterday came from James 3, referring to the power of our Words. We spent most of the day discussing the power of what we say and how it makes a huge difference in the lives of those around us. As the speaker said, “our words a matter of life and death,” both spiritually and often times physically.
We were challenged by Rob to focus on fixing our heart. He pointed out that most of our negative words come out of defensiveness. We essentially build our castle around the things we love, we sit on our tiny little throne and whenever something threatens that little kingdom we’ve built of things we love, we defend it often with our words. We attack people who threaten what is ours or we get defensive, we use our words to destroy others so that we can protect what we view as our kingdom, the things that we love.
But someone has to rule. So you have to kick yourself off the throne and then make Jesus Lord. If he rules in your life, then you won’t have any issues with your speech, or at least fewer. We are surrounded by sniping and nipping and gossiping all the time. The church has to be different. Rob challenged our students to make the culture of the language of our students ministries different that the culture of the language of the world. What a great challenge for us as a church! Get off your tiny little throne and focus on following God and loving others!
John-David M. Culbertson 