Hold Your Peace
Tuesday's Devotion (2-5-08)
"Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding." Proverbs 17:28 (KJV)
Yesterday, we talked about opening our mouths and saying good things to other people. Today we're going to talk about closing our mouth when we don't have anything good to say. This can prove to be VERY difficult. People have a way of making us angry enough to say things that we just shouldn't say. No matter where we go we're going to run into these people that make us want to say or even do horrible things, but it's up to us to be in control of ourselves. As hard as it is, we shouldn't curse our neighbor with the same lips that we praise God with. Some of you are saying, "I don't." Well, you only got one set of lips so you're either lying or you're not praising God... Because I know everyone has at one time or another cursed other people. It's hard not to, but that's no excuse for doing it. Some of us are worse than others when it comes to cursing others, I know I'm pretty bad myself.
All we can do is pray for strength not to curse others but instead to show them love. People do bad things, they say bad things, but if we respond to them with love then that has the power to change them or at least change their attitude towards you personally. I know that when I'm at a business or something and one of their employees gets on my bad side and I make a complaint, it usually goes down in one of two ways: The management defends their employees and are just as rude, in which case I get even angrier. The other way it goes down is that the management is really kind even though I'm angry, in which case I'm nice to them and say something like "It's not your fault, I'm just letting you know." See, you can turn away wrath with kind words. The best thing to do if you have nothing good to say is to say nothing at all, unless you know someone is twisting scriptures or something to that effect and you need to correct them.
Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this message and for all things. Please forgive us of all our sins as we forgive all those who've wronged us. Please help us to praise you and not to curse others. Help us not to speak evil. In Jesus name. A-men!
God bless!