Thurs. Oct. 20, 2011 What Comes Out of Your Mouth? 4

For I am afraid that when I come I may not find you as I want you to be, and you may not find me as you want me to be. I fear that there may be quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, fractions, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder.

Good Thursday morning, my dear brothers and sisters. It is Thursday and the day we pray for families and also for schools. And as you pray for families please remember to pray for the family of God. Please remember to pray for Baby Boy Noah who at 3 years of age has cancer, and please pray for his family and extended family. Pray for Vicki and her family, the Saylor family. Also pray for all the families who come to our food pantry.

What comes out of Your Mouth? Day 4: 2 - Corinthians 12:20 - For I am afraid that when I come I may not find you as I want you to be, and you may not find me as you want me to be. I fear that there may be quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, fractions, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder. (NIV)

Well, brothers and sisters, there are a lot of things in that one scripture that could come out of one's mouth. And while all those things could be linked together, they could also stand alone. Let's review them and see if any fit us. We talked about confession yesterday so if you need to confess any of these over, remember it is between you and God.

Quarreling - This one we might just want to call fighting, and it happens a lot in families. And some of the things that cause this quarreling might be money problems, the breadwinner out of work, jealousy, and lots of other things, and once some of the things that are said come out of your mouth, it makes the fighting or quarreling get worse. A lot of times these fights and quarrels happen in front of your children. And again I remind you that once these things come out of your mouth, you cannot put them back in.

What could we do instead of quarreling? How about some discussions on the subject you are quarreling about?

Jealousy - This has caused quarreling, and of course outbursts of anger, and has even resulted in injury and even death. To get around jealousy, you must form a bond, a bond of trust. If you have a mate that gets jealous easily, do all you can not to promote it.

I know over the years of jealousy that did cause injury and death, and did not need to be done. Again things said while in that jealous rage, cannot be taken back.

Outbursts of Anger - can cause a lot of screaming, cursing, even using the Lord's name in a cursing way. Folks, if you have outbursts of anger, you need to get to the root of what causes it, get some help, talk a lot to God, and let Him help you with this. Anger is a problem... one thing that feeds anger is booze.

Fractions, slander, gossip, and even arrogance - These things can happen often at the work place, often at the water cooler. Also the slander and gossip, believe it or not often happen in churches... WHAT DID I SAY, CHURCHES? Yes, even in churches, these things can happen.

Dear Father in Heaven, help us this day to weigh each and every word that comes out of our mouth, and again I ask that You help us to run things coming from our mouth past You, past our heart, past our brain before we put it out for the world to hear. We really need help on this one... In the name of Jesus, Amen.

Now go forth this day sharing your blessings. And since the Lord gave us another day, we need to do our best to give it back to Him by living to please Him in all we do. And if we really watch what comes out of our mouth, that would be a great start. Love ya, Pastor Dan.