Daily Devotional

Word of the Day

Words of the Wise

It's amazing the power of words as goads! These things are inspiring! Words can motivate us! Words take these principles, solidify them, and establish them in our lives in areas that'll inspire us forever! You know, I have little phrases that are written down in the back of my Bible that are so powerful. "To respond is to pursue." Think about that -- the power. These are words, as I've gleaned from teachers over the years, things that I've read, seen, or heard, and things that I've written down in my Bible. Words can motivate us. "We're the sum total of our desires." You meditate upon these things, words that are just spoken. "We pray only as well as we live."

You don't have to speak a lot of words, do you? How long can you meditate upon those little statements? Have we spent time in His presence to be able to hear so that we can speak the words of the wise, pleasant words, appropriate words, forceful words, that cause our brothers and sisters to be able to stand? It's the discipline of being able to put a watch over our mouths, or as Paul told Timothy over in 2 Timothy 1:13, "Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus." Of all the words that you hear in a day, what do you hold fast to? See, this is what Paul is telling Timothy. "Hold fast! You've heard a lot of stuff. You've been to the seminar. You've heard all of this instruction that's been going on." Do you have any Word to share? What can you tell me today that'll change my life? Why are you so motivated and so turned on about that that's so trivial? You're not excited about words that can change a man's life for eternity! How excited are you about putting the name of Jesus on your lips and speaking it at an appropriate time, knowing how forceful right words are?

Speech is the power to speak right words. Paul said in Colossians, "Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man" (4:6). Listen to the value that the Holy Spirit puts upon our speech. "Let your speech be always seasoned with grace." Now, when you speak to others, even bringing in the gospel, bringing them the understanding that they're lost, rebels, and they're defying the living God, is it done in a seasoning of grace? Do we realize that we've come from where they are, a people touched with the feelings of their infirmities? We know what it's like to be lost, without God, as the Scripture says.

A lot of times as believers we've been separated for awhile from the power of sin, and we've forgotten what manner of men we are. There needs to be a compassion, not a compromise, not a justifying of their sin. We speak the truth to them in love, speaking boldly, but our words are seasoned with grace. What is grace? It's unmerited favor. You speak to everybody not what they deserve! We all deserve hell! "I'm going to give you what you don't deserve, because freely I've received, freely I give." We speak to everyone with compassion, love, and respect. What I mean with respect is the fact that there's somebody that Jesus died for! He's a person that Jesus shed His blood for. If God put that value on him, that's the value I'm going to put on him.

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