1 Peter 3:10
For whoever desires to love life and see good days,
Let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit.
If we want to live life to the fullest for God we must pay attention to our mouths. We need to watch the words that came out of our mouths. We also need to be aware of how the words come out or when the words come out also. Peter says keep your mouth from evil. The mouth is a place of sin we do not think of in the church. When we think of evil, we tend to think of the big, gross, ugly, and shameful sins. But the mouth and the words and tone that we use our mouth for, is just as much of a sin as say murder or stealing. In his book “Respectable Sin” by Jerry Bridges he gives an entire chapter to the sins of the tongue. Let me list a few sins and ways that we can do evil with our tongues.
For whoever desires to love life and see good days,
Let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit.
If we want to live life to the fullest for God we must pay attention to our mouths. We need to watch the words that came out of our mouths. We also need to be aware of how the words come out or when the words come out also. Peter says keep your mouth from evil. The mouth is a place of sin we do not think of in the church. When we think of evil, we tend to think of the big, gross, ugly, and shameful sins. But the mouth and the words and tone that we use our mouth for, is just as much of a sin as say murder or stealing. In his book “Respectable Sin” by Jerry Bridges he gives an entire chapter to the sins of the tongue. Let me list a few sins and ways that we can do evil with our tongues.
deceitful and
telling a lie
gossip
slander
critical speech
of someone else, whether it is true or false
ridicule
harsh words
sarcasm
insults
These are all
ways that we use our mouth for evil and hurting others. This list does not even
mention and highlight some of the others way that we can use our mouth to
showcase some of our others sins, like letting pride seep out of our mouths or
covetousness come out or even having sins like adultery and hatred coming out
of our mouth. Peter is right, if we want to live our lives to the fullest and
honor God with our life and enjoy Him, we need to put a reign on our tongue and
shut our lips so that no evil is done with them.
Instead of letting our mouths and
lips do evil we must turn them from evil and do good. We must use our mouths
for the good of God and the furthering of His kingdom. How can we turn our
mouths from evil and do good with them? Encouragement, kind words, loving
statements, joyful singing and shouting of praise to God, being patient with
our mouths and sometimes keeping them shut, saying something that is gentle,
spreading the good news of Jesus; these are many different ways that instead of
using our mouth for evil we can use our mouth for good. So do not simply try
and live life to the fullest by getting rid of evil speech and talk but instead
also replace it with good and loving speech and talk.
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