May my thoughts and my words be honoring and gracious to every person and to God. May my heart and mind be filled with thoughts of mercy, forgiveness and grace, viewing (giving consideration to) everyone with tender love and mercy, so that every time my mouth opens my words will be full of honor and compassion and gratitude.
Key Verse Luke 6:36
"So be merciful, sympathetic, tender, responsive, and compassionate even as your Father is all these." (AMP)
"Live out this God-created identity the way our Father lives toward us, generously and graciously, even when we’re at our worst. Our Father is kind; you be kind." (MSG)
See Also: Luke 6:35-38, Romans 12:9-21, and Matthew 5:21-22
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I used to imagine this, and used it as a guide for my thoughts and words: God standing next to me on one side, and He just said to the Devil, "This one is my child listen to her words they will honor Me", and on the other side are the people I am thinking about and speaking about they hear every thought and every word. In that light, I then am forced to take captive every thought and word to the obedience of Christ becoming His child by conforming my thoughts to His merciful gracious ways, forgiving not because asked, not repaying kindness just with kindness, but repaying kindness the same way Christ repays me, with long suffering grace, mercy, and forgiveness.
I hear people who truly love Christ open their mouths and reveal critical attitudes that have not yet been fully sanctified to reveal the grace, mercy and self control that Christ Jesus calls us to, sisters and brothers in Christ, workmanships in progress, not yet complete.
I used to think of myself as a person who had loved with a genuinely graceful compassionate heart, and now that seems to have faded to darkness. For the evidence that stands before me this morning is that when I open my mouth and out flows negative reflections about my current circumstances. The question I am asking myself this morning is: did I let myself become flavored by the "soup I swim in" or did this originate from the desires of my fallen nature worshiping the idol of pride and selfishness turned inside out?
MY PRAYER:
Whatever the source dear Lord, I am undone and confess freely that I am a woman of unclean lips of a people of unclean lips. Oh dear God forgive me ... wash me again in the truth of your sacrifice and resurrection. If you cleanse me, then Lord I will be clean. I turn to You, the Holy One. I CHOOSE to fill my heart with meditation on your grace and mercy and to CHOOSE to see and love others with those same love, compassion, tenderness and mercy. I choose to put on the corrective lens of [grace & mercry] and [gratitude & thanksgiving].
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing to you my LORD and my Redeemer.
AMEN.
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