Gentiles no longer...

17 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!— 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Personally, these verses hit close to home. My brother recently gave his life to Christ. I saw first-hand the effects of a life, mind and heart alienated from God. I saw the anguish, confusion and torment that came about from having no hope – from not being able to walk in the light. The transformation of God’s saving grace in his life has been powerful to watch unfold! Having been drawn to Christ when I was four, my brother’s path has made me so aware of what I, apart from the grace of God, would have been doing. I would never have chosen Christ but would have chosen to only gratify the desires of the flesh – living a selfish, self-focused life.

But the fact that Paul tells us to no longer walk like the Gentiles leads to the conclusion that we can be imitators of the Gentiles rather than imitators of Christ. This leads me to wonder where in my life I look like a Gentile to others. If the person in the car next to me, behind me in the check-out line, on the other end of the phone, etc. were asked whether or not I was a believer….what would they say??? How many times do I miss an opportunity to share with the Joshuas (my brother :) around me because of my self-absorption? How many individuals walk around alienated from the One True God because of my carelessness? Oh, may I walk like a child of God – in tune with the Holy Spirit, looking for opportunities to not only live my life as who I am but to also share with the lost and dying.

25 Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. 26 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and give no opportunity to the devil. 28 Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. 29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

Do not let the sun go down on anger….the antidote to bitterness. Speak purely. Put away bitterness. And wrath. Put away slander. Be kind. Forgive one another….and why? Because God forgave ME! Further, the only words that should ever come out of my mouth are ones that are going to build up others and give grace to them. Wow. How many thousands of words per day do I speak? (and how many thousands more do I write in emails, texts and online???? Wow! :) According to various studies, women speak (on average) 50,000 words per day and men speak 25,000 – though the numbers drop as low as 5,000 and 2,500. (no comments from the boys on this! :) Regardless…that is a loooot of words in one day. If 1% of my words are not edifying – and I speak 50,000 words – that is 500 unedifying, tearing-down words I speak PER DAY. That’s a lot of words.

I love this quote from Paul David Tripp’s book War of Words, “Words belong to God, but he has lent them to us so that we might know him and be used by him. This means that words do not belong to us. Every word we speak must be up to God’s standard and according to his design. They should echo the Great Speaker and reflect his glory. When we lose sight of this, our words lose their only shelter from difficulty. Talk was created by God for his purpose. Our words belong to him.”

May every word I speak tomorrow be representative of His grace and work in my life.