Christians are representatives, or messengers, from God. Because of that, how we speak and act either glorifies or unglorifies God. James said it best, “Out of the same mouth proceeds blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be” (Jas 3:10), and Paul added to that, “Now you also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth” (Col 3:8).
Do it now; cease your vile language
and disrespectful behaviors.
Luke explained why the mouth should speak only good things; it is because the mouth is the organ of the brain, as it is written:
A good
man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good;
and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which
is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. (Luke 6:45)
The heart cannot speak. Of
course, Luke did not refer to the organ, but the entire organism — what is
inside the person! The ‘heart’ is the nature of the person. What comes out of
the mouth reflects what is going on in the mind.
Jesus, speaking to the apostles, said this:
18
And you shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a
testimony against them and the Gentiles. 19 But when they deliver
you up, take no thought how or what you shall speak:
for it shall be given you in that same hour what you
shall speak. 20 For it is not you that
speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaks in you. (Mat
10:18-20)
The apostles would appear before kings
and Caesars, but God is not a respecter of persons. It is not appropriate to
gear the conversation to the audience. Some Christians speak like the prophets
in church but like cussing sailors when in the world.
The apostles were to go unto the
world. That was their ‘Great Commission.’ What if they spoke like the world
speaks? Then their mission would have been to no avail. Suppose they went to Caesar’s
party island of Capri. How should they present God to the revelers? Just like another
reveler?
The apostles, according to Jesus,
would be brought before regals. God arranged that for them once Jesus’s own mission
was accomplished.
The mission of Jesus was to
present the ‘Good News’ — the gospel message — the truth. Like Jesus would do
before governors and kings himself, they would also offend those to whom they
spoke.
Jesus led kings and governors to
believe that He was King of the Invisible Empire. They surely believed that but
would have hated that thought! That notion would have offended them because in
Roman times, Caesar was ‘King of kings and Lord of lords’ because kings bowed
to him, and he appointed himself Pontifex Maximus — the supreme high priest.
Think on that; Jesus at His
numerous trials revealed to them that He was not only the high priest only of
Judea, but the Supreme Priest of the Cosmos! He revealed to them that He was
the true Caesar, not of the Roman Empire, but the entire universe; that
it was Himself that was ‘King of kings, and Lord of lords.’
Paul said it would be revealed in the
millennial reign of Jesus; “Which in his times He shall shew, who is the
blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords” (1 Tim 6:15).
Now think of the apostles; they
were the ‘Court’ of King Jesus. Not only that but they were of the ‘royal priesthood’
(1 Pet 2:9). That itself would offend kings and governors, and most certainly the
two high priests who had created an Annas dynasty with five priests ready to be
kings like John Hyrcanus long before.
When He spoke those Words, Jesus already
knew that He would speak before Annas, Caiaphas, the Sanhedrin, Herod Antipas, and
Pontius Pilate, the latter of whom was ‘Caesar’ in absentia since Caesar had
been secluded on the island of Capri for several years, leaving the governors
to run the empire.
Jesus had already referred to the
priesthood as ‘vipers’ and ‘thieves.’ He implied to Pilate that Pilate had no
authority, that only Himself called the shots. Think how offended all the dignitaries
would be when this man of plain countenance and unbecoming appearance claimed
supremacy to them! Think of Joe the Plumber who had the audacity to challenge President
Obama! That was what Jesus would do and what He expected the apostles, and all
Christians, to do.
Jesus never prepared for what He
would say. He needed not to because He was the ‘Mouth’ of God as the Living
Word (John 1:1-14). Jesus spoke from experience and all that He said was
emanated from the Mind of God. He need not ask God what to say because it was God
who spoke, using the mouth of that Person.
Jesus spoke the Mind of God, and
since God is Mind and Spirit, then it was the Thoughts of God that Jesus spoke
in the Spirit — the bodily shaped phantom of God of an invisible Substance that
was revealed at His Baptism (Luke 3:22), as well as at the Transfiguration and
Crucifixion.
Jesus never needed to think
because when He spoke it was the Truth. Thinking is a process; the input of knowledge
(or data), reasoning, logic, and conclusions. Jesus’s Thoughts were the
Thoughts of God. No processing of the knowledge was required because God is
good. There was no decision making because truth is absolute and requires no
processing. Jesus was the ‘Mouthpiece’ of God as the ‘Word’ as He appeared in
the Old Testament, and “the Word was made flesh” (John 1:14).
Hence, the nature of
Jesus, if a supra-nature can be called ‘natural,’ was goodness and truth. His
Thoughts were the Thoughts of God.
In the Old Testament, Moses could
not speak well. God assigned Aaron as the ‘mouthpiece’ of Moses, but Moses
ended up speaking well because it was God who was speaking through the mouth of
Moses. The thoughts of Moses were identical to the Thoughts of God but Moses
vocalized God’s will but did not claim those Thoughts as his own.
God as much said to Moses what Jesus
said to the apostles, “Take no thought how or what you shall speak: for it
shall be given you in that same hour what you shall speak.” The way to do that
is through the spoken and written Word.
The apostles were so familiar with
Jesus that they thought like Him. His Words were an everyday event and so
theirs should be… as well as the words of all Christians. In other words, the
nature of the Christian should be like the supra-nature that is called ‘in
Christ,’ but not just in word but in spirit and behavior as well.
The mouth reveals the nature of
the person, whether it is good or evil. However, so do the other organisms: the
personality, countenance, ambulation, and such things. It is not just things
that are said that reflect the innermost person, but things that are done.
The flesh is the outward
manifestation of the innermost being. For instance, if you view pornography,
your innermost man (or woman) is a fornicator. On the other side, if you focus
on the Word, your innermost man is righteous in spite of the fact that you sometimes
trip over things in the world — the high hurdles of Satan — to make you fall
away.
Consider a preacher man that I
know, He is neither well educated nor of an impressive vocation, but when he
speaks, it is not his thoughts. When I hear his sermons, I am certain that he
is expressing thoughts that God instills in him. He is so familiar with God and
the Word that he needs not think much on what he says, it just comes out, maybe
because it is nothing more than the thoughts of God that he speaks, and he
concurs with them! (My friend, Bro. Steve Moore).
Preachers are now the ‘apostles’
who perform the Great Commission and Christians are ‘royal priests’ under them.
All Christians, regardless of status or even personality, are to speak truths
from the Word.
How can the untrained do that? “For
it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaks in you.”
If you have the Spirit of God in you, then it is God who speaks through you. To
speak well the Thoughts of God, it is necessary to be familiar with the Word of
God. If you do not study the Word, how could you ever speak the Thoughts of
God.
The apostles knew the Word
because they followed Him day in and at night. They considered all that Jesus
said, and His Thoughts became their thoughts, of course excepting Judas whose
thoughts were on monetary gain.
Judas knew the Word and the
Thoughts of God but weighed them on untrustworthy scales. His thoughts were
that money was worth more than life itself for he died for the love of money.
That should be a lesson to
everyone. Never focus on money nor things that money can buy; focus on the
Words of Jesus and your thoughts may soon be the Thoughts of God.
For example, when I study the Word
most days, much of the day, my thoughts are about God. However, if I fail to
study the Word in the morning, during the day my mind wonders, often leading me
to sin because the thoughts of demons sneak into my mind just as Satan sneaked
into the minds of the two in the Garden of Eden.
Demon possession is not
only having the evil spirit within but often their ‘stand ins’ — their
thoughts. The Word of God blocks the thoughts of demons within our minds.
Our thoughts do matter because
the body in general — the flesh — is just the executor of our thoughts.
That should make sense because the
Word, or Scripture, is the Will of God, Jesus was the ‘Executor’ of that Will,
and as heirs, then Christians are co-executors!
(picture credit; FAVPNG.com)
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