Deuteronomy 28:1-68, Luke 11:14-36, Psalms 77:1-20, Proverbs 12:18
Today is the 5th day of April welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian and it is wonderful to be here with you today as we gather and move forward together on our adventure through this year and through the Bible. And our next step forward leads us back to where we left off of course, and that happens to be in the book of Deuteronomy. And today Deuteronomy chapter 28.
Commentary:
Okay. So, in our lives there is a thing and it’s the same thing for all of us that is an ongoing thing and has an ongoing effect on us. It’s everywhere but is unbelievably powerful. Like it can…it can bring great courage to us, but it can also descend us into the absolute depths of depression, it can bring peace that flows like a river, and it can bring anxiety that burns like acid, and everyone’s involved. What would that be? Words. We speak words and we tie them together into sentences from the time that we get up to the time we go to bed usually. And words have the power of life and death in them. They can give life and they can take it away and usually we’re not even thinking in those kinds of categories. We’re not thinking about the kind of power that’s in our mouths. But words can change moods, atmosphere, hope for the future. Words change our lives. Words bond our relationships. Words can blow a relationship to smithereens. From our reading in Proverbs today, “careless words stab like a sword, but the words of why these people bring healing”, which gives us the opportunity to pause for a quick second, take a step back, look in the mirror and wonder like, what kind words are we known for. Are we known for our cutting remarks? Are we known to be careless with our words and stab with them like a sword? Are we even paying attention to their impact? Because they can stab like a sword, or they can bring healing. This won’t be the last time that the Bible invites us to consider what’s coming out of our mouths and it’s not the first time that we’ve considered this either. It’s Jesus that told us it’s what comes out of our hearts and through our mouths that defiles us. It’s not what we eat. We’ll find when we get a little bit further in the New Testament like to the letters, like the letter from James will tell us that the power of life and death is in our tongues. And, so, let’s give some thought today. Let’s invite the Holy Spirit to help us observe ourselves and the kinds of things that come out of our mouths in the different circumstances that we face. Are they uplifting? Are they productive? Are they bringing healing or are we just destroying stuff? This actually matters because we can end up destroying ourselves with our words. And, so, as we continue to move into this new month and navigate the changing of the seasons let’s move into this new season paying attention to what we’re saying because it is through our words that things get created inside of people’s hearts. This is how God creates, right? He spoke things into existence. And we’re not speaking things into existence that have no matter or existence. We’re not like God in that way but what comes out of our mouth creates things because we are created in His image. And, so, maybe a good way to think about this is less about what we’re saying and more about what atmosphere we’re creating with this powerful gift that God has given us called a tongue. Maybe let’s practice today. Let’s practice bringing healing with our words today rather than using our tongues like a sword.
Prayer:
Holy Spirit, we invite You into that. Once again, we are face-to-face with the fact that we often live reacting to things. And so often when it’s a reaction we fall into a rut, a well-worn path, a well-worn pattern of reaction that we’re just used too, we fall into and before we even know it we’re saying things maybe we shouldn’t say that aren’t going to bring healing and aren’t going to be helpful. There just going to be destructive. Help us to catch ourselves before we start that, before we fall into that route, before we do the same reaction like we normally do. Help us to pause and take a breath and invite You in before we make trouble. May we use our tongues today to bring healing into this world. And there’s a lot of us here, a lot of good can happen in a day. And, so, come use us and may we appreciate what a difference it can make in our day. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
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And that’s it for today. I am Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.
Community Prayer and Praise:
Coming soon…