More often than not I hear the looseness of untethered minds, as their language lands in thuds upon unprotected ears.
It seems that few care anymore for innocence and civility in our language.
I know I will sound old fashioned, prudish, stuffy, and all the other stiff-shirted names, when I say that it shouldn’t be so, but, “it shouldn’t be so.”
Language matters.
Maybe it doesn’t matter to teachers anymore. Maybe moms and dads, have taken down all the boundaries at home even, maybe the guy with the profanity scrawled on the back of his t-shirt at the children’s museum doesn’t care, but all of them should.
I don’t pretend to be offended. I’m not offended, I’m sad.
It burdens my heart. Not because we’ve become so uncivil, but because we’ve become unprotected. Our words matter. The way we use them, the context, the inflection, the timing, and the intention matters.
The “f” word won’t send you to hell. I’m not on that band-wagon. My point is not to judge, it’s to remind us all of something greater.
I will bless the LORD at all times;
His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
Psalm 34:1
I think it’s easy to slip past these words and call them exceptions, exaggerations, or even dramatic. I think they are much bigger than that. I think they are anointed.
How can we bless the LORD at all times, and still use words that defy His intentions for us?
How can praise be continually in our mouths if we are using words that represent filth and sin?
Worship, blessing, and praise are not relegated to Sunday mornings in a pew. They are lifestyles we adopt in chasing after God. So many that name the name of Jesus, and claim to be His, consider it a passive relationship. Jesus does all the chasing, and we sit back and try to accept the path He chooses for us. All the steps are optional, all the obedience is negotiable, we are not slaves to Christ, instead we are stumbling in a land of compromise, unable to discern right from wrong because we’ve listened to teachers who color every option in gray.
My God is incisive. He is not a template, He is a Cornerstone. He is not building a playhouse, or a chicken coop, He is building a church.
You have tried my heart;
You have visited me by night;
You have tested me and You find nothing;
I have purposed that my mouth will not transgress.
Psalm 17:3I have called upon You, for You will answer me, O God;
Incline Your ear to me, hear my speech.
Psalm 17:6They have closed their unfeeling heart,
With their mouth they speak proudly.
Psalm 17:10
In Psalm 17, David is praying for God’s protection against oppressors. There are more examples than these that mention the mouth. David is calling out to God and defending himself by reminding God that he doesn’t sin with his words. Why? He knows that foul words are a hole in the fence of God’s protection.
Our enemy is clever. He attempts to make us see our compromises as innocent, and our oppression as a reason to compromise. But when we compromise in our behavior, we are compromising our defenses.
How often I have heard the mouths of saints defend their language and mourn their oppression.
Let the redeemed of the LORD say so,
Whom He has redeemed from the hand of the adversary
Psalm 107:2He sent His word and healed them,
And delivered them from their destructions.
Psalm 107:20
Our mouths are meant to bear witness to His goodness, not the filth of the world. His word comes to heal, we should follow suit.
By the rivers of Babylon,
There we sat down and wept,
When we remembered Zion.
Upon the willows in the midst of it
We hung our harps.
For there our captors demanded of us songs,
And our tormentors mirth, saying,
“Sing us one of the songs of Zion.”
How can we sing the LORD’S song
In a foreign land?
Psalm 137:1-4
Psalm 137 is about captivity. It speaks to the homesickness of the captives, and then of the oblivion of their captors. “How can we sing the LORD’S song in a foreign land?”
Here we are, no longer captive to anything. Both physically and spiritually free, and yet we choose to sing the songs of our captors. God has broken every chain, but we still speak the language of prisoners.
Our language isn’t keeping God away from us. He is ever present, but it is keep us from knowing Him because we aren’t speaking His language.
And they sang a new song, saying,
“Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.
You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth.”
Revelation 5:9-10
We are meant to sing the song of the redeemed. A new song that dispels the lies of the enemy and the power of his oppression. Our words matter. Our language is meant to be a weapon we wield for the kingdom. It is intended to build and to defend, but we pray from crumbling walls because our own words are fighting against us.
He who has a crooked mind finds no good,
And he who is perverted in his language falls into evil.
Proverbs 17:20
These are not just empty warnings. These are the observations of wisdom.
Do you find yourself falling into temptation, even when you know better? Do you see others walking in favor, while you fumble in the day to day?
He who restrains his words has knowledge,
And he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding.
Proverbs 17:27
It isn’t just curse words, it’s words that curse. Critical, accusational, gossip, and mean spirited words are low hanging fruit, and too many refuse to reach higher. We have something better than what culture offers us. We have words of LIFE. Why would we sink to the status quo of a world dying?
Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth; Keep watch over the door of my lips.
Psalm 141:3
We have a Father who provides protection, even from ourselves. We don’t have to walk in condemnation, we walk in redemption. He does not leave us to our own strength, He offers us His. When we praise Him, He doesn’t just sit back and bask in the comfort of our flattery. He is mingling with us, becoming one with us, as we lift our words of exaltation to Him.
Yet You are holy, O You who are enthroned upon the praises of Israel.
Psalm 22:3
Enthroned – Strong’s 3427: To sit down, to dwell, to remain, to settle, to marry
Some translations say, inhabit. I personally love that part of the definition of this word is “to marry.” Not just reign over, not just live with, but to marry. To me that offers a precious picture. When we praise, we are uniting with Him. He meets us, and raises us up.
There’s no better use of our words, than to speak His name, His truth, and His life. I want to do more than better discipline my tongue in what I shouldn’t say, I want to empower my life by offering Him all my praise.