Matthew 12:36 (KJV)
"But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment."
Words mean things. But sometimes we have no reason why we say the words that we speak. Words just seem to come from out of nowhere. Awkward silence makes us feel awkward. We look to fill the empty spaces and end up wishing that we had just kept our mouth shut.
The Bible says that out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. I guess that most people still have way too much evil in their hearts. Like middle school kids perfecting the art of the put down, it is so much easier to speak negative words than positive ones. Speaking words of love takes hard work. We can't let idle thoughts pop out of our mouths. Speaking words of life requires us to see others as God sees them.
If a man is pure in his speech, then he is perfect according to the book of James. The tongue is a restless evil full of deadly poison. No man can tame it. Only God can change it as a man yields to the transforming power of Jesus. Where the heart leads, the tongue will follow. What a man thinks, he generally speaks. I feel like I'm spouting out wise sayings like a man reading a bowl of fortune cookies. But this journey is going somewhere.
Frequently, people have no real idea why they even think the thoughts that they do. That's where God comes in. He knows us and can help us figure out who we are and how we should look at the world. And in a culture full of words, Jesus can help us discover which ones to believe and which ones are a lie.
Words are powerful. They can bring life or death. Words can linger for years. They can shape the world view of a person. Words can even affect how a person thinks about himself. But words only have power when we give them power by believing them.
