Saturday, October 17, 2009

Relationship Principles of Jesus ~ The Greatest are the Servants

I was blessed to grow up in a home where every summer for several years there were four generations living under the same roof. For several years we lived in my Grandmother’s beach house in CT and every summer my Grandmother and Great-grandmother would come and live with us. One of the most vivid memories I have of my Great-grandmother is sitting on the porch with her and playing cards. While my Grandmother played cards to win and she taught us all how to be somewhat competitive, my Great-grandmother didn’t care about winning at all– for her it was all about the time spent together. In fact, what I remember most about my Great-grandmother is playing Old Maid because when we played cards with her we could see every card in her hand reflected in her glasses, so it was easy to not pick the old maid and win the game. I’m sure she knew we were cheating, but she didn’t care, in fact she would often make it even easier for us by sticking the old maid up in her hand and encouraging us to pick that card – which of course we never did. When the game was over and she was the old maid again, she would simply smile and want to play another game. For my Great-grandmother it wasn’t about the cards – it was about the relationship and it was about helping her great grandchildren feel like winners, and let me tell you, when you are in K, first and second grade, nothing feels better than winning a game of cards, even old maid.

What my Great-grandmother was living out was a powerful relationship principle taught to us by Jesus. She knew that relationships would be the strongest and healthiest when we are willing to be humble and serve one another. There is a lot of misunderstandings when it comes to defining humility because we often see it as a sign of weakness – but it is not. Humility is simply lifting up the value and worth we see in others. The best definition of humility comes from Philippians 2:3-4, do nothing out of vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Humility is not putting us down, it’s not thinking less of ourselves - it’s simply thinking more of others. Humility is considering others as better than we are and then turning that consideration, that thought, into action. Genuine humility will lead to service because if we really see others as being better than we are, we will want to lift them up and love them in practical ways that will meet their needs. My Great grandmother didn’t think less of herself, she just thought more of us and so winning didn’t mean anything to her, but seeing us win, seeing us happy and laughing and feeling confident meant everything.

Jesus teaches this relationship principle to his disciples in Mark 10:35-45. As Jesus is walking along the road with his disciples, James and John come close and draw Jesus aside to ask him if they can sit at his right and left hand when he comes into power. What they want are special places of honor above the other disciples. Now what do you think happens when the other disciples hear about this? They get angry of course, (10:41). The reason they get angry is that they also want the places of honor and prestige. So look at what happens to relationships when people try to elevate themselves above others, relationships are strained and in time can be broken. If we are only looking out for our own self interest and what is good for us and what will make us feel superior to others, relationships will be damaged and ultimately destroyed, so Jesus steps in to teach them this relationship principle, Mark 10:43b-45.

This principle isn’t just a faith principle, we aren’t to be humble servants just to be good followers of Jesus, this is a relationship principle. The way to build and grow healthy relationship and the way to keep relationships strong is to be humble and serve one another. In Ephesians 5:21 Paul calls people to submit to one another out of reverence to Christ. Submitting to one another means placing the needs of others before our own, its humble service and it builds relationships. Jesus knew that they way to hold his team together was by teaching them to stop thinking about themselves and only working for what was good for them and start thinking about how to serve and help each other. Relationships will experience healing and they will grow stronger if we will stop thinking about what is good for us and start serving others.
Jesus didn’t just teach this principle of humility and service, it was how he ordered and lived his entire life. It was THE principle which guided who he was and everything he did. Look at Philippians 2:6-8. This passage is known as the Christ hymn and it is thought to be one of the earliest sayings of the church, which means it needs to be one of the guiding principles for us today. When it says that we are to have the same mind as that of Christ Jesus, it means we are to have the same attitude and live by the same principles that guided Jesus, and what we see here is a life of humility and service. Although Jesus was God himself, he did not think of himself first, he thought about others and how he could help them, and the way Jesus was going to do that was to empty himself of his divine nature, become a man and walk in this world.

And when God entered into this world as a man he did not demand any rights, privileges or power, he lived a life that constantly thought about others first, Jesus humbled himself and became a servant. The depth of his service wasn’t just seen in how he fed the hungry, made the lame to walk, the blind to see and brought healing to anyone and everyone who came to him, his humility and service was seen most powerfully when he became obedient to death, even death on a cross. It is the cross which stands as the ultimate symbol of humility and service. Jesus chose to humble himself and he chose a path of service. Jesus didn’t think of himself first or what was good for him, he thought about others and at every turn he chose to serve others. He served by teaching, feeding, loving, healing, forgiving and setting people free. That is the example of humble service that is set before us and we don’t follow it just because it is what we do are to do as followers of Jesus, we follow this path because it is the way that leads to stronger and healthier relationships. Humility and service will strengthen relationships and remember, relationships are the most important things in life and we should be doing all we can to make them stronger.

Every relationship in life can be strengthened if we will be willing to humble ourselves and serve. Think about how marriages can be transformed if husbands and wives will set aside their own wants and needs in order to care for and lift up each other. This is what Paul means when in Ephesians he says, wives submit to your husbands and husbands love your wives. Remember the call to love is a call to submit AND serve AND sacrifice for the other. The lives of our children can be significantly improved if we will place their needs before our own and serve them in loving ways. This doesn’t mean we give our children everything – sometimes the loving thing to do is to not buy them material possessions but give them our presence, our time and guidance and love. Maybe the loving thing to do is set aside time to play a game of cards and let our children know they are valued and loved. Relationships at work and in our community can be healed and transformed if we will serve and lift up those around us. Our world can be a place of life, love, justice and joy if we would all be willing to humble ourselves and life lives of service.

Today’s a great day to hear this message of humility and service because the crop walk is great opportunity for us to learn humility and service. The crop walk reminds us that there are deep needs in our world that we can help meet if we are willing to think of others more highly than ourselves. Sometimes it is hearing the truth of injustice that humbles me, and so I need to be reminded of some harsh realities of the world today, like:
· 16,000 children die of hunger related causes every day, that’s one child every 5 seconds, which means since we have been here in worship over 500 children have died due to hunger & poverty.
· To provide basic health and nutrition for the world’s poorest countries would cost $13 billion- which is what the US and European spend on perfume each year. Each year the US alone spends $20Billion on ice cream. Think about it, what we spend on ice cream each year could solve the world’s hunger problem!

I am humbled when I hear these statistics, but the question is will I do something about it? Will I turn my humility into service? Will I serve and give to those in need around me?
If we were truly humble servants following the example of Jesus, we would reorder our lives so that more food and resources would go to those in need. As we think about becoming more humble servants and changing our lives to serve others in ways that will truly lift them, the one thing we will need is a deep and abiding faith and trust in God. The only way we can let go of our self interest and serve others the way Jesus did is if we believe to our very core that God not only has our best interest at heart but that God will work to meet our every need. It is our faith and trust in God that helps move us from being demanding in this world to being dependant upon God, and it is faith and trust that move us from condemning others to lifting them up. If we trust God to have our best interest at heart and if we trust God to care for us in all ways and in all places, then we will be able to stop striving for all that we need and start serving the needs of those around us, and as that happens, something else will happen – relationships will improve. Families will be strengthened, communities will grow strong and our world will experience more peace, justice, joy and love.

As we seek to live lives of humble service I want to share one last thought. A lot of times we think that lives of humility and service have to be void of competition and greatness. That is simply not true. Go back to Mark 10:43, Jesus does not condemn the disciples for wanting to be the greatest – he just says they are going about it the wrong way. The way to be great is not through self-promotion; it’s by being humble and serving others. The desire to be great and to live a life of significance and greatness is a fundamental part of who we are. Think about it, we have been created in the image of God and God is great (I learned that in the very first prayer I learned, God is great, God is good…), so inherent in us is a desire to be great – but while the world tells us the way to achieve greatness is through personal fame, glory, position and power, Jesus says the path to real greatness, God’s greatness, is humility, service and sacrifice. The greatest are the servants so we need to strive to be a servant.
If you are a competitive person, great – strive be the best servant there is. In Romans 12:10 (NRSV) it says love one another with mutual affection, outdo one another in showing honor. I like the NRSV because it says it’s ok to be competitive, outdo one another – see if you can top each other, not in an effort of self promotion, but in order to love as Jesus loves. Here’s where some ambition and competition can be a good thing. Pour yourself into honoring those around you. Follow the example of Jesus and give all that you have to serve those God has placed in your life and on your heart.

Getting back to the relationships in our lives, if there is a relationship that we need to our want to improve then we need to find real ways to serve that person. If we want to improve our church then we need to outdo one another in showing honor. We need to find ways to lift one another up through our words and our actions. If we want to see transformation in our community and world, let us do it the same way Jesus did, by not thinking about what is good for us and what will benefit us, but what will help others. The greatest are the servants, and greatness will come to our relationships when we do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit but consider others as better than ourselves.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Relationship Principles of Jesus ~ As You Judge, You Will Be Judged

Let’s take a quick review of the Relationship Principles we have learned from Jesus so far. The first principle is really just making sure that relationships, our relationship with God and with others, are the top priority in our lives. If they are not we won’t invest our time and energy into making them better, so the 1st principle is to place the highest value on relationships. The 2nd principles is to learn to love as Jesus loves which means choosing to be involved in fellowship and choosing to forgive, but we also saw that the ability to love as Jesus loves only comes when we are also willing to follow Jesus completely. And then last week we learned that because communication is the fuel for every relationship it is important for us to stop, THINK and pray before we speak. Today’s relationship principles comes from some of the most practical teaching Jesus gives and it’s found in Jesus’ sermon on the mount in Matthew 7:1-5.

This is not only a familiar teaching of Jesus; it is also a powerful teachings for relationships. If we interpret and live out this teaching about judgment the right way – relationships can be strengthened and even transformed. If we fail to understand what Jesus is saying about judgment and if we fail to live it out properly – relationships can be easily destroyed. Criticism and judgment are some of the most destructive forces in relationships so it’s important to understand and put into practice what Jesus is saying.

The first thing Jesus says is that we need to stop being hypocrites. Hypocrisy is searching for the speck of dust in someone else’s eye while there is a plank sticking out of our own. Hypocrisy is saying one thing and yet doing the complete opposite. It’s pointing out the sin in someone else’s life while ignoring the sin in our own, and as we read through the gospels we see that Jesus talked a lot about hypocrisy and his favorite target were the religious people of his day. Look at Matthew 23:23-28.

Jesus says here that the religious leaders were more concerned about their appearance then they were about the attitude of their heart or the action of the hands. The religious leaders were only interested in being seen by others as righteous and holy, but their attitudes weren’t righteous and their actions weren’t holy. They were filled with pride and greed and they trampled on anyone who got in their way. In an effort to promote themselves they neglected the poor and needy and they were critical of anyone who truly sought to live for God. The religious leaders of Jesus’ day had planks sticking out of their eyes and yet they were the ones who constantly pointed out the specks of dust in the eyes of others. Not only does this kind of hypocrisy and critical judgment break down our relationships with one another, but it breaks down our relationship with God because God is a God of truth and love and there is no truth in hypocrisy and no love in being judgmental.

So we need to stop pointing out the speck of dust in someone else’s eye and start taking notice of the log in our own, but how? Well think for a moment about what we do when we actually get something stuck in our eye. When a speck of dirt gets into our eye, we really only have a couple of choices, we can go to a mirror and see what is in there and where it is and then work to get it out, or we can ask someone for help. If we want to avoid hypocrisy in our lives then we have to do one or both of these very things; we have to either do some serious self-reflection, or we have to ask others to help us examine our lives, or we can do both, but none of this is easy.

I don’t know about you, but I absolutely hate anything near my eyes (which is why I don’t wear contacts) and I can literally have a full blown anxiety attack just thinking about going to the eye doctor. There is nothing more traumatic for me than eye exams or worse yet any kind of eye surgery. A few years ago I had to have some sties removed from my eye and I was a complete mess, and the truth is that serious personal reflection can be just as messy and painful because we may not like what we see, and asking others to help examine our lives can be even more humbling and difficult, but it is necessary if we want to become the people God has called us to be and it is essential for healthy relationships.

You will find in the bulletin an insert with some questions that can be used if you want to do some serious self reflection, or better yet find a trusted friend and share what you find in yourself with one another. It’s a difficult and painful first step – but it will help all of our relationships in the long run because after going through a process of self reflection and examination we will be more patient and understanding and forgiving when we deal with others.

While discovering the plank in our own eye is the first step, it’s not enough to just discover it – we have to be willing to take it out. Jesus doesn’t say, find the plank in your own eye then point out the speck in your neighbors. Look at Matt. 7:5. When Jesus says we need to take the plank out of our own eye he is saying is that we need to be living lives of integrity. Last we talked about being men and women of our word where we say what we do and do what we say and that’s part of integrity. The other part of integrity is being willing to live out the faith we profess. It’s not enough to say we love others and then not act in loving ways toward them. It’s not enough to believe in forgiveness and then not be willing to forgive and welcome and accept those around us. We have to be people of integrity which means living out the faith we believe in our hearts and profess with our lips.

I love the word integrity because while we think about it in terms of morality, it really just means being whole. The word itself comes from the Latin word integer and an integer in math is any whole numbers like 1, 2, 3, 4. When God calls us to be men and women of integrity it’s a call to be whole people where what we believe and say and do are all the same. Integrity is doing what we say we will do, it’s letting our yes be yes, and our no be no. It’s living out our faith in such a way that people will know we are Christian by the love and acceptance and grace that they see in us Integrity is important to God because God is one. What God says he lives out in every aspect of his being, and as God’s people it is this kind of wholeness, this integrity, that God wants from us.

As Christians it is important for us to have integrity because if there is one common criticism people outside the church have about Christians it is that we are not people of integrity. Patty Taverno sent me a video that was made at PS recently and it’s man on the street interviews with students. When asked what Christians should be known for they said, community, love, forgiveness, kindness and good deeds, but when they asked what Christians are known for they said, not following their faith, being judgmental and angry, and having a false sense of integrity. Since this is often what people already think of us as followers of Jesus, if we are going to build relationships where we can share God’s love and truth and grace, then we are going to have to work even harder on our integrity. This does not mean we have to be perfect, we will always struggle and fail, but it does mean we have to own up to our shortcomings both as individual believers and as God’s church. Integrity involves confessing our sin when we see it or when it is pointed out to us, and it means working together to overcome it. Integrity means being willing to be held accountable so we can move forward with the power and the grace God gives us.

Integrity is not just important to the image of the church or to our lives as followers of Jesus, integrity is important to relationships because integrity is the foundation of trust. If people see us as men and women of our word, if they see as whole persons who live what we believe, they will be able to trust us and relationships built on honesty and truth will be healthy and strong. So integrity is important to our relationships and if you look in the bulletin you will find some questions for reflection as we strive to take the plank out of our eye. Have I confessed my sin to God? Am I willing to confess my sin to another person? Am I willing to have someone hold me accountable?

These are difficult questions that call us to be honest and vulnerable with one another and while we may not want to do this, God did not create us to live our lives or our faith by ourselves. We need each other and one of the things we need from each other is the honest eye and faithful heart of those who can help us overcome sin and live the lives of faith we want to live. When I was in Altoona I had a good friend and we met regularly to hold each other accountable and it was some of the most powerful times of faith in my life. While it’s not easy to find people with whom we can be completely open, honest and vulnerable– we need to try. Perhaps God has placed someone in your life today with whom you can begin to build this kind of relationship. You might not be there yet, but if you will step out in faith and continue to build this relationship – God will bless you with strength and power to live a life of integrity and deeper faith.

So to strengthen relationships we need to stop and notice the plank in our own eye and then we need to work to take that plank out. This process alone can strengthen relationships by making us more understanding and patient when it comes to dealing with others, but according to Jesus we don’t work to take the plank out of our eye just to get the plank out of our eye, we are to do that in order to help others. Look again at Matthew 7:5. God calls us to clean up our own lives so we can be better prepared to help those around us. We are to take the plank out of our eye so we can not only see the speck of dust in someone else’s, but know how to help them remove it.

For strong, healthy and growing relationships it is important to be able to talk to one another about concerns we see. It is important to help one another grow in character and faith, and sometimes this means speaking the truth in love, but for our words to be received with grace and to be effective in bringing about change, it’s important to first acknowledge our own problems and be working on overcoming them. If we point out someone else’s problems without first confessing our own– our efforts to help will be misunderstood. We may think we are being loving and helpful, but without humility and mercy, our help will just be seen as being judgmental. So it’s important to all of our relationships to first acknowledge and confess our sin and then work to overcome those problems before we reach out to help those around us, but we can’t neglect reaching out to those around us. God calls us to help one another.
In Proverbs 27:17 it says, as iron sharpens iron, so are we to sharpen one another. In Hebrews 10:24 God calls us into relationships where we spur one another on to love and good deeds and part of that process is to help one another overcome sin and that means helping people see the speck of dust in their eye, but before we point out that speck we have to make sure we are examining our own lives on a regular - ongoing basis and we have to make sure we are asking others to walk along side of us as we strive to overcome our own problems, then and only then should we reach out to help others. If you are at a place where you want to help someone work on that speck in their eye, first take a moment to reflect on the questions in the bulletin before you speak the truth.

2 final questions to ask before we point out the speck of dust in someone else’s eye, and these are the same questions we heard last week when it came to speaking the truth in love.
First: is this relationship strong enough to handle the truth? If not then don’t point out the speck yet, work on building trust and love in the relationship first. If there is a solid relationship that can stand up to the truth, then the second question to ask is, Am I willing to walk with and help this person as they remove the speck from their eye? If you think about it, it’s easier to remove a plank from your own eye then a speck of dust from someone else’s because a plank is easy to see and you can just grab hold of it and pull, but a speck of dust is hard to see and it might take some time and patience and effort to remove it. Are we committed to the time and patience and faith and love needed to work with and walk with others?

Healthy relationships call for us to first overcome hypocrisy and then walk with integrity so that we can offer mercy and grace to others.

Monday, October 5, 2009

Relationship Principles of Jesus ~ Communicate from the Heart

I’m sure you have all played the telephone game at some point in time. You know the game, you whisper a message into the ear of one person and that message is then whispered down the line and the person at the end has to repeat what they heard and many times the message that comes out at the end is very different than what was said at the beginning. While the outcome of that game can often be humorous – poor communication can be a disaster for any relationship. Poor communication can lead to distance between friends, division among a team and even divorce in a marriage. Good communication is essential to healthy relationships because all relationships are fueled by communication – but it’s not just what we say that’s important, it’s how we say it, when we say it, where we say it and the heart that lies behind what we say that also matters. So what principles does Jesus teach us about communication with one another? One of the first things Jesus says is that we have to be true to our word. Matthew 5:37.

For there to be good communication in any relationship, people need to be able to trust what we say and trust only develops over time as people learn that they can rely upon what we say. While trust takes time to develop, it can be destroyed in an instant, and there are several things that can destroy trust when it comes to communication. One thing that breaks down trust is broken promises. While it’s easy to call politicians on the carpet for promises they break, we are all guilty of this at times. We make promises to our children but then think nothing of changing our plans. We promise to complete a job, but then make excuses for why it’s not finished. We promise to be home on time, but then place work ahead of our family and stay late.

When we break our promises people begin to wonder if they can trust anything that we say, so we need to pay more attention to what we say and the promises we are making. If we say we are going to do something – we need to do it. If we say we are going to be someplace – we need to be there. Our yes needs to be yes and our no needs to be no, and if we fail to keep a promise we need to own up to it and ask for forgiveness. One of my concerns in the church is how easily we say that we will do things, but then I wonder if we really follow through on it. For example how often do we say, “I’ll pray for you,” and then never take the time to sit down and actually pray. I hope we are true to our word and I’m sure that our intentions are good, but the question is do we follow through. Our yes needs to mean yes. Jesus says we need to be true to our word and if we fail in some way, or maybe I should say, when we fail (because we will) when we fail we need to own up to it and ask for forgiveness.

Another practice in communication that breaks down trust is silence. Now this doesn’t mean silence doesn’t have its place – it does and we’ll look at that in a moment, but too much silence can break down relationships because when we don’t share what we are thinking - all kinds of assumptions can be made. Now I hate to say this, but listen up men because we need to pay attention to this. Studies show that women use more words in a day then men. This is probably not a surprise to anyone, but one study I read said that women use 20,000 words a day while men use closer to 7 (that’s 7,000 no 7). That’s a huge difference and women not only use more words but they often are looking for a response to those words. What this means for men is that there may be times when we have to make more of an effort to share what we are thinking and feeling because if we don’t say anything, women are left either wondering what is going on, or making assumptions about what we is going on. While silence has its place, too much silence can lead to doubt, fears, and wrong assumptions and all of that not only breaks down communication but it erodes trust and relationship. If you tend to be quiet in a relationship then make an effort to speak up and if you tend to do all the talking, think about using fewer words to encourage more conversation.

While broken promises and silence break down communication and trust, the one that will break down trust more than anything else is lying. Honesty is not only essential to good communications and therefore good relationships – it is one of the bedrocks of our faith. Look at Proverbs 6:16-19
2 of the 6 things God hates have to do with lying: a lying tongue and false witness. Lying even made it into the 10 Commandments – you shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. Again, the reason God gives this command is because lying breaks down relationships and what is the most important thing to God? Good relationships. So it is important for us to be truthful. But let’s be clear that being truthful is not a license to be mean, God calls us to speak the truth, but to speak the truth in love and a great example of this was Jesus’ encounter with the rich man.

In Mark 10:17-22 a rich man comes to Jesus and he wants to know what he has to do to be faithful and inherit eternal life. Jesus tells him to follow the commandments, which he has done. It then says, Jesus looked him and loved him and then Jesus told the man the truth. There is still one thing you lack, go sell everything you have and give to the poor, then come follow me. It says the man’s face fell when he heard this because he had great wealth. The truth was that this man had placed his wealth first in his life so what Jesus was calling him to do was hard, but Jesus loved him enough to tell him the truth. Jesus did not berate the man, he didn’t condemn him and he didn’t ridicule him, he simply spoke the truth but in love. Speaking the truth in love is not easy, people won’t always respond the way we want them to (the rich man walked away from Jesus and we have no idea if he ever returned) so if we are going to speak a difficult truth to someone, then we need to make sure we really love them before we open our mouths.

If you are wondering if you should speak the hard truth to someone, here are some questions we can ask ourselves first. Do we have a solid relationship with this person? Can our relationship handle all the messiness that might come up if we speak the truth? And (most important of all) are we willing to stay with the person and walk with them as they work to incorporate this truth into their lives? Speaking the truth in love means speaking the truth in the context of a loving relationship – it means being willing to be there with the person for the long haul if we are going to confront them at all
As you can see, speaking the truth in love requires us to have love in our hearts before we open our mouths. In Matthew 12:34 Jesus says that out of the overflow of our heart the mouth speaks. If we have love in our hearts then our words of truth will be seasoned with grace, but if our hearts are not filled with love, our words, however true they might be, will be filled with pride and bitterness. What Jesus says here is that whatever is in our hearts will come out in our words, good or bad. If we love someone, words of love and grace will come forth, but if we are angry with someone, harsh words of criticism and condemnation will come. And don’t assume that we can fake our communication and say words of love when the love isn’t there. According to Jesus that doesn’t work – what is in our hearts will be communicated – maybe not in our words, but it will come out in our facial expressions, our tone of voice, our body language. Jesus says what lies in our heart will always come out, it will always be communicated, so if we want to build up a relationship we need to examine our heart and make sure our attitude is right before we speak.

So what Jesus teaches us about good communication is that we need to keep our promises, speak the truth in love and work on having the right attitude towards others before we speak. Now my guess is that none of this is new to us. We know we need to be honest, and loving, but we still have trouble saying the right thing at the right time and with the right heart. Communication is not easy, In the book of James it says no one can tame the tongue and there is a lot of truth in that. Even when we know the right things to say, we often don’t say it, and how many times when we know we shouldn’t say anything do we open our mouths and say the wrong thing. No one can tame the tongue, but we can work at it and here are some practical things we can do to improve our communication.

The first step toward improving communication is to stop before we speak. If we are in a heated conversation the best thing we can do is stop and give ourselves a few moments, or even a few minutes before we respond. Proverbs 12:18 says reckless words pierce like the sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing We speak recklessly when we speak before we think and it is the words said in haste that often are the ones we regret the most. So instead of speaking quickly and recklessly, we need to stop and give ourselves a few moments before we speak. This is where some silence can be golden, but the silence has a purpose because it is as we are quiet that we can take a few moments and think. Now when I say think, what I mean is T.H.I.N.K.

T - Are the words we are going to share truthful. If not – then don’t say them, remember God is all about honesty in our speech and in our life. If the words are truthful then ask yourself if they will be H - helpful. In Ephesians 4:29 it says, Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. We should only share words that will be helpful to others and what will benefit them in their situation.

Not only should our words be truthful and helpful, they should also be I - inspirational. 1 Thessalonians 5:11 says we should encourage one another and build each other up. Do our words inspire people to be all God wants us to be? Do our words encourage people to turn to God and trust God and do they remind people that we will stand with them? Will our words inspire people to a deeper faith and a better life?

And then we need ask ourselves if our words are N - necessary. Do they really need to be said? This is another place where silence can often be a better choice. Not every thought we have needs to be shared. Not every comment or commentary needs to be spoken. Many times the truth might be better left unsaid, or kept for a better time or place.

And then finally, will our words K - kind? Will our words help people out of the situation they are in? If you remember back to our series on the fruit of God’s spirit we defined kindness as being useful or helpful to others, so will our words help people? Will they make a positive difference in someone’s life?
Stopping to THINK before we speak isn’t just something we should do when we find ourselves in heated conversations; it’s how we should approach every conversation. All of our words need to true, helpful, inspiration, necessary and kind, and if they are, not only will our communication be better – but our relationships will grow stronger. And now one final tip when it comes to communication, since taming the tongue, or learning to say the right thing at the right time is so difficult, we can not forget to communicate with God first. If we have a difficult conversation to make, if we need to speak the truth in love, if we have to learn to speak up more, or learn to be silent more, then we need to pray before we speak.

Do you remember what we learned in school about fire safety? If we ever catch on fire we need to do 3 things: Stop, Drop & Roll. Well, if we don’t want our words to set our relationships on fire then we need to do 3 things: Stop, THINK and Pray.