Speech Season with Salt

 Colossians 4:5-6
Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time. Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.

Overseers and those who have been charged to rule are given a responsibility to lead with love and grace.  Seasoning your conversation with salt. What does that look like? How we treat and speak to those in our charge is important to the spreading of the gospel and the impact it will have on others who are watching. It is not only important in what we say, but how we say it. We can be caught up in trying to be right, that we lose the purpose of our message. We don’t have time arguing for the sake of being right, people need to know that God is good and desires to show Himself with love and grace to a world that is lost. Adding salt to the words we say. Salt is a flavor enhancer, it brings out sweetness to food. Salt can also counteract bitter flavors in food. Adding words of kindness and being sensitive to others in the words we speak will go a long way showing Christ to others. Salt is also a preservative. Many disease-causing microbes are also simply unable to grow in the presence of salt. Our words and speech can help temper a conversation from turning bad and hateful. Let God be our overseer in our speech and conversations. Words mean things and can be very powerful in influencing others for good or evil. Let our speech be always in harmony with what is pleasing to God and glorifying Him

Corrupt Communcation

Eph. 4:29 Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.

The scripture has a lot to say about how Christian should be communicating. Before coming to Christ, unless trained otherwise, we took no thought about the words we spoke. The old self had no filter, it spoke what it thought, and would justify itself because they were injured or disrespected by someone else. When someone does wrong against us or violates our self image, the natural response of the “old man” is to lash back out. To get even, get revenge. “No one talks to me that way, I’ll show them”. Being angry at the actions of other people is not sinful, Paul said, “Be angry, but sin not”. Don’t let your displeasure cause you to spew out corrupt communication. Let the Holy Spirit put a guard on your tongue. Don’t grieve the Holy Spirit by allowing the devil to take control of the words you speak. Put on the “new man”. Let God transform the way you communicate the words that come out of your month. Especially those that are new born in Christ. It will be a work in progress. Putting off is a deliberate action that is taken. Refrain from using words that are filled with evil speaking and are malicious. But let the words you speak be uplifting and kind. A soft word turns away wrath. Entreats the Holy Spirit to empower you to be a witness for Christ and minister grace to those who may not be deserving.

Talking to God

2 Chron 6:19 “Have respect therefore to the prayer of Thy servant and to his supplication, O Lord my God, to hearken unto the cry and the prayer which Thy servant prayeth before Thee:”

Basically, prayer is just talking to God. When we say, “I’ll be praying for you”, we are telling that person that we will talk to God about them and their needs. Prayer implies that there is a relationship established. It is not likely that we would be approaching strangers and start up a conversation. That is not to say that we never do, but it is not something we normally do. But, if we see someone we know, we visit and talk about what is happening. Having a relationship with Jesus, gives us an open door to talk to Him at anytime of the day. Continue always in prayer is to continue to speak to Him no matter where we are or what we are doing.  Depending on our needs, this conversation with God can take on different facets as we enter into conversation. God desires us to come to Him and make our needs know, He hears our voices as we lift them up heavenward. It is good to take time out of the our busy day to talk to God, putting aside the busyness of our day and just have an intimate talk with Him. May we always have an open heart and listen to the voice of God and take time to stop what we are doing and have a quiet visit with the lover of our soul. 

The Conversation of a Christian

James 3:10 “Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be.”-

I am surprise when someone who says they are a follower of Christ and loves Jesus to hear them use words that are considered to be foul or degrading. I hear them express their love for God and with their mouth will praise Him. I try not to judge, but it is difficult to understand in light of scripture how a person can say they love God and use words that are offensive and cutting. For someone who has recently been delivered from sin, it may take time to break the habits of bad language. The Holy Spirit is faithful to check us and lead us in paths of truth, speaking those things that would please Him. What we speak is more than the words we say. Cussing, swearing, and the use of profanity is unacceptable behavior for a Christian, but so is speaking unkindly and speaking things that destroy the name of others. Speaking harsh words from anger that is unholy comes from a heart that has not been sanctified. From the unholy heart, comes unholy conversations. The Holy Spirit is able to cleanse the heart from ill temper that causes one to speak words that are demeaning and self centered. Even in our righteous anger, God is able to give us the grace to speak  truthfully with love and kindness. In the human, it is almost impossible to control what we say and how we say it, that is why it is so important to have His Spirit in our lives to help us keep our conversation such that it glorifies God. The words we speak puts our faith in Christ and our wisdom on display for everyone to see.