“ I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Galatians 2:20
It was several weeks ago that I was scrolling through my Twitter feed catching up on all the latest updates when I came across a post from Pastor Rick Warren (author of Purpose Driven Life). It was one of those quotes that literally stops you dead in your tracks and knocks the spiritual wind out of you, if you know what I mean. True conviction flooded my heart as I read…
“I cannot live the crucified life (Galatians 2:20) unless my tongue is nailed to the cross. My words betray my true condition.” – Rick Warren
It was one of those “wow” moments for me as I suddenly found myself reflecting on all the ways in just that day alone that my words had revealed the ugliness within my heart – things I had said in anger and frustration, gossip that had too easily poured out of my mouth, negative speech… I quickly grabbed the nearest thing I could find to write on and jotted the quote down, determined to meditate on this and let it sink in, hopefully resulting in changed behavior.
I’m ashamed to say that there have been countless times since that I’ve allowed my tongue to disgrace those that would hear what I have to say, knowing full well that God’s Word clearly instructs me that my speech should give grace to those who listen (Ephesians 4:29). On far too many occasions, I’ve allowed words to flow from my mouth that are laced with anger, malice, and bitterness as opposed to the love and joy that ought to flow from the life of a sinner saved by grace. Today was one of those days, a day of verbal failure as I chose to let my emotions lead me as opposed to the Spirit. Anybody had one of those days recently? Thankfully, I know that God is still at work within me, and it wasn’t even moments after the words came out of my mouth, that I was filled with a godly sorrow over my sin. My mind was brought back to the above verse and quote as I confessed in humility my sin to the Lord.
Why is it that failing in this area comes so easily to us? I’m really not sure if women are more prone to this than men are as some might say, but I do know that this is an area of moral failure on our part as Christians. It’s a contradiction to profess faith in Jesus Christ and from the same mouth spew verbal venom on others. God gave us our mouths to praise Him, and instead we far too often use it to criticize His creation. My prayer today is that you and I will begin to walk in victory in this area. I pray that we will see that the crucified life requires every part to be surrendered to God’s authority, especially our tongues. I pray today and the days to come that we will choose righteousness as opposed to selfishness when it comes to our speech. May the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing and acceptable in your sight, O Lord.
Cherie, awesome post…so relevant to all and thanks for being so blatantly honest…I find myself in this very place daily…regretting harsh and quickly spoken words that do not glorify the Lord. I am gonna copy this quote too and paste it around my house!
Geez, so convicted also! Even before I read this is was just replaying my stressful day yesterday running a track meet for 11 teams while still trying to coach my own team. Amongst all that stress, words and phrases of frustration with people i work with or students students i work for, left my mouth that certainly didn’t glorify God or bring Him grace. The conviction is already there, now it’s just much heavier! I don’t know how to stop my tongue, it’s usually just followed with a sorry or oops when I curse out loud, but when I talk poorly about someone else, no matter how justified I feel it is…it’s just plain wrong to let that go, especially given the young lives all around me God has put in my life to influence. I’m frustrated now just thinking about it, because I do pray each day that I will hold my tongue and just love the way Christ did when students or co-workers drive me nuts! But every day I fail them and end up saying something I hate. I’ve even had to apologize to a few of my students(which actually completely repaired our relationship and was a blessing). But I hate that it happened in the first place. Many of my kids don’t know love, im the closest thing they may ever experience to the grace and love of Jesus, but yet I struggle to love them. Ugh, I need prayer, and continued grace and conviction, and a hammer and a nail! Thanks Cher, needed that picture of Literally nailing my sin(tongue) to the cross. Love you!