Hebrews 2:14-18 NIV
SCRIPTURE
“encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.” -Hebrews 3:13 NIV
OBSERVATION
en·cour·age/enˈkərij/Verb
1. Give support, confidence, or hope to (someone): "encouraging results"; "I feel encouraged".
Words can heal or words can kill. Words can deliver life or death. It is our choice – we pour our own spirit into our words. God gave us the gift of words, hoping that we would steward them well. Words can focus on us or on others. There are words that build up and words that tear down. Negative words can be dangerous: if we hear them enough, we start believing they are true. The worst part is, after the negative words have been spoken, we tend to repeat those same words to ourselves. Words can also deliver healing or deliver wounds. We have to choose which it will be. Death and life are all in the power of the tongue.
APPLICATION
1. Express Appreciation
Romans 12:21 says, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” The only way to neutralize evil is to replace it by actively doing something good. We have to replace the mistakes by actually complimenting and building others up. We have to practice expressing appreciation.
2. Dedicate Our Thoughts to God Today
Our actions and words need to be pleasing to the Lord. Yet, if our thoughts please Him, everything else will follow suit. What is on our minds and hearts is more important to God. God looks at our hearts; we have to make sure that our hearts are right. God tells us to be careful how we process things on the inside because, sooner or later, they are going to come out of our mouths.
“The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart” (Luke 6:45).
3. Commit to Making Wrong Things Right
We might think that, if we make mistakes with our tongue, the best thing to do is just “zip our lip.” We decide not to say anything anymore and just be quiet. That will not work – if that is our goal to not make any mistakes then we will not make any contributions either. We will make mistakes but we are not to leave them as mistakes. We are to correct them! Otherwise, our words will go out with barbs wounding people and we will not even know it. If we make a mistake, God says, “Make it right.”
“If you have been snared with the words of your mouth, or have been caught with the words of your mouth, do this then, my son, and deliver yourself … go, humble yourself, and importune your neighbor … Deliver yourself like a gazelle from the hunter’s hand and like a bird from the hand of the fowler” (Prov. 6:2-5).
God wants us to understand the power of words and to steward them well. They can deliver life or death. God wants to bring His Words of life to us. If we have prepared our hearts and our ears by stewarding words well, not only can we hear Him but we can also deliver that life to others.
PRAYER
Lord, help me put this into action today, so that, I will not be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness - aka: God I need Your help to put this into action within my life. I need You to transform another aspect. Why? So that, I my heart doesn’t become hard and I don’t start to buy into the false notation that all this bible stuff is just trickery. - Trevor
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