Bellefield family,
Words can carry great power. They can challenge or comfort, they can inflame or inspire, and they can harm or heal. We’ve seen this all displayed in our recent national discourse.
Words can carry great power, and who it is that speaks can carry great weight. Presidents and poets, leaders and legislators–the past few weeks have produced no shortage of powerful words from those who occupy significant roles in our society. Some of what has been said may soon fade from our collective memory, while some of what has been said may endure, with their words remaining familiar and influential in years to come.
If the words that we speak to one another can carry such power and weight, then how much more consequential would it be for God himself to speak to us?
This is not a thought exercise or hypothetical scenario. In Jesus, we have God himself, the Word-made-flesh, who has come to us. His words, then, carry greater power and weight than any others. That’s one of the reasons we’re currently studying the Sermon on the Mount. In it, we hear the Savior speaking to us. What Jesus says is not always easy to hear or embrace, yet he speaks words of light and life.
Even though the words of Jesus tower above anything else we will ever hear or say, the words we speak to one another still matter. As we’ll see this Sunday, Jesus says we cannot speak words of anger or insult to one another, and that we must speak with honesty and integrity at all times (Matthew 5:22,37).
We’re not good at this, which is why we must listen well to the words of the God who speaks to us–and then go out to live and speak as his people in this world. After all, we are to “be doers of the word, and not hearers only” (James 1:22).
I pray this finds you healthy and well, and that we may all be those who hear and heed the words of our Savior.
Grace and peace,
Josh
