Do Your Words Have An Automatic Shutoff Or Do You Push Override
Psalm 141:3-4 Amplified Bible (AMP)
3 Set a guard, O Lord, before my mouth; keep watch at the door
of my lips. 4 Incline my heart not to submit or consent
to any evil thing or to be occupied in deeds of wickedness with men who work
iniquity; and let me not eat of their dainties.
Our iron has an automatic shut off feature on it, as do
many of the appliances and items in our home.
It is my thought that the automatic shut off feature is a blessing;
because I am sure everyone at some point in their lives has been in a rush and
possibly forgot to turn off the iron or some other item within the house or
maybe forgot to unplug it. The shutoff
feature is one of those protective features that were developed to keep us from
burning down our homes or doing some sort of detriment to ourselves, our homes
and others. It also saves energy, and
keeps us from having to pay exorbitant electricity bills that would arise as a
result of things around our house being left on; if it did not destroy or damage
our home.
God in His infinite wisdom does
something for us, if we allow Him to, He places a shutoff valve on our mouth;
it is called the conviction of the Holy Spirit.
All too often though we override the conviction to further allow our
mouth to be engaged and our words to flow freely. As a result we damage and destroy people,
family, church family, friends, and worst of all innocent people that we know
little to anything about. We take great
pride in condoning our use of our override switch by saying phrase and sentiments,
like, “I am just being real, keeping it one hundred, I am just saying what is
on my mind, or I am never going to let anyone tell me what I can and cannot
say.” But God through the working and vehicle
of the Holy Spirit is not just anyone; He is the almighty, the one who created
heaven and earth; the one who created you and me, and given us purpose and
life. But yet we choose to disregard Him
regularly when it comes to shutting off that mouth of ours and allowing God to
be in control. Oh that could be the very
issue; it could be that we have not allowed God to be in control and nor have
we made Him truly the one who has the final say in our lives and what we can
say and cannot say and what we can do and cannot do.
If we are overriding a feature that
is to keep us safe and others as well; a feature that is for our benefit and
will keep us from losing, why then wouldn’t we utilize it. Some would say it is
free will because it is our God given right; others would say that God gave me
a mouth and I am going to use it. But
the truth is that we have not submitted to God being in control, and allowed
Him to tame our mouth and temper our thoughts and words. We are still too busy wanting to be right, to
be in control, come out on top or make ourselves feel better or look better
than others to allow the Holy Spirit preeminence in our lives to get us to just
stop talking some times and allow God to keep us from making a mistake that
could cost us dearly. My mother used to
remind me constantly that the one thing you cannot take back is words, because
once they are out, you have said them, given life to them and they have an effect.
Be
careful this year in what you speak, not only about others, but about
yourself. What things you allow your
automatic shutoff to be overridden to speak.
The Bible reminds us that there is the power of life and death that is
in the tongue that abides in our mouth; it also reminds us that it is out of
the abundance of our heart, ( which is the center of who we are) our mouth will
speak. Let the Holy Spirit guard your
mouth this year; let Him reign, rule and have full authority to tell you when
you should speak and what to say. If we
are truly submitted to God through Christ Jesus, many of the things we think,
that turn in to the words that we speak, would not proceed out of us, because
we would seek to line our words up with the word of God and not a feeling, an
emotion or a need just to appease the flesh.
Check your automatic shutoff and see if it is still working or have you
just chosen to override it.
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