“Do not use harmful words, but only helpful words, the kind that build up and provide what is needed, so that what you say will do good to those who hear you.” (Ephesians 4:29 GNT)
When you analyse words in their different aspects and dimensions, you'd understand that they're very powerful things. Today, I want to focus on the words that we communicate to other people. The Bible tells us to not allow corrupt and harmful communications to proceed from our mouths but those that are useful and helpful in building and lifting those who hear us. Our words can either produce constructive or destructive results and impacts in the lives of those that we speak them to if we’re not careful.
Throughout the scriptures, God describes the human heart as a garden or a field. He also describes His words as seed (Luke 8:11), immediately showing us that our words are also seeds because He created us in His image and likeness (Genesis 1:27). This analogy should immediately show you that every person’s character, personality, reactions, actions and words are a manifestation of the words that they’ve been hearing overtime—because it’s only the seeds that you plant in a garden that will grow in that garden. Simply put, words can either make a person beautiful or corrupt; they can make them a success or a failure. This is why the Lord Jesus told us to be careful of what we hear (Mark 4:24).
Sometimes, when we teach or correct others in certain ways, we may not realise that we’re planting and watering the wrong seeds in them that will manifest themselves as a harvest of more bad behaviour in the near or distant future. Some methods of teaching, correcting and communicating are ineffective and discouraging to those who hear them; they lack the love-element and the love-language, and so they’re far more destructive than they are constructive. They program a certain negative mentality in a person, making them think and believe that they’re a really bad and terrible person, causing them to focus only on the wrong things they do. There’s a better and more effective way to use your words to help someone become better.
The Bible tells us that the godly person studies how to answer and use his words correctly (Proverbs 15:28). If we’re going to help people become better, we have to make sure that we’re sowing good seeds into their lives by not only giving them the right words, but by communicating those words correctly. We have to learn to teach and correct people with love, patience and gentleness, ensuring that we’re not destroying the good that’s already in them or discouraging them from becoming better altogether. A wonderful teacher once said, “It’s better to switch a light on than to curse darkness.” How profound! He said this referring to correcting and building people.
It’s better to encouragingly, lovingly and patiently tell and show people the good, excellent and right way to be or to do something than to continually gripe and complain about the bad that they do and to tell them how bad they and what they do are. The first method sows good seeds into a person and they will grow to do and be more good, excellent and right. The second method is much more likely to keep them in their wrongs. Don’t just focus on the wrongs that a person shouldn’t do, help them to focus on the right they can and should do.
Share this Divine Update with someone else today and help them to live in the liberty and beauty of God's love, blessings and provisions.