Friday Reading: Matthew 12:33-37
Key Verse: Matthew 12:33
33 Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree corrupt and its fruit corrupt; for the tree is known by its fruit.
Devotion:
Have you noticed that you can get to know what part of the country or world people are from just by the way that they talk? You even get to know what part of town people are from when you hear how they talk. If it becomes easy for us to be able to identify people from how they speak, think how easy it is going to be for others to know more about us from how we speak. I am not just talking about being from Liverpool because you speak with a ‘scouse’ accent, nor about being from Zimbabwe because you talk funny. I am thinking more about what sort of language you use when you do talk.
A person from this side of the world and a person from the other side of the world may well use similar language when they speak even though they sound totally different. It is that language that they have learned as they were growing up that comes out of their mouths. I can remember learning all manner of foul language from my school days and using it too as I grew up with those people. It was only when I started hanging out with people that did not speak like that that I learned that what I was doing was very wrong. But the sad part is that those words are all in my head now and I cannot forget them. Those words and things may well be quiet because I no longer use them but they are still there like a pollutant that will not go away.
Our lives are what we make of them. The more garbage we let into them the more garbage we have to carry round with us. The more garbage we are carrying round the more likely we are to spill that garbage when we get into difficult places. Oh, it’s nice and easy not to get caught up in those ways when we are amongst good people, but when we are around people that use those bad words and ways we are more likely to give in and use them too... just because we have that garbage with us... People are going to see us act in the ways that we do and they will make their minds up about what sort of people we are just because of the things we do. Those things are going to be coming from the garbage we carry round with us...
Points to Ponder:
How much garbage do you carry round with you?
Do you ask Christ to help you pack that garbage away?
