Words are powerful. As James writes, "With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing." (James 3:9-10). Words can be good and kind and build others up; or they can be hurtful and damaging and ruin lives.
When Jesus taught His
disciples to pray, He said not to babble or use lots of words. God
knows what we need, before we ask Him (Matthew 6:7-15). The Lord's
Prayer is concise, simple, to the point. We honour God and call Him
'Father'; we ask for His will to be done; we request forgiveness and our
needs to be met, and to be taught to forgive; and we beg to be protected
from evil and temptation.
God's Word is more powerful than any of ours. When God speaks, His words will achieve His purpose, no matter what attempts to get in the way. "It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it." (Isaiah 55:11). As we've seen over the past few days, God speaks for the poor, the oppressed and the broken. He calls us to do the same. We have a choice to follow God's Word, and speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, or we can leave that mission to someone else. Either way, "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." (Psalm 34:18). Isn't it better that we choose to join God and use our words to promote social justice?
How will you use your words to build up the oppressed and broken today?
Just wanted to say thank you for these Lent posts, I'm really enjoying them and they are challenging (in a good way) too. x
ReplyDeleteThank you, Ruth. Unfortunately, life has got in the way of blogging the past few weeks. Hopefully I'll write more next Lent! x
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