No Nudist In The Kingdom Part Five

"Therefore, laying aside all malice, and all guile, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking (gossip), as newborn babes desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious." 1
Peter 2:1-3 NKJV

Therefore putting off all evil speaking. Here is another No-brainer
in the Christian life. What a sad-sad testimony for a Child of God to speak evil of another or tell an obscene joke. In this verse some translations just say gossip, but the truth is, all evil speaking is sin to the Lord. The Bible tells us that this is hard to control in our natural state. James writes," Forwe all stumble in many things. If any one does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man able also to bridle the whole body.......Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things. See how great a forest a little fire kindles! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell........But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessings and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so." James 3:2-10
Here we see that for a Christian this should not be. As a Christian living by
his or her old nature, they cannot control their tongues. It is humanly
imposable. A lot of this evil speaking can come from the former sins mentioned in this verse Malice, guile, hypocrisy, and envy. If we put off these things we should be able to cease the gossip and evil speaking of others. But I'm afraid to say that many of us have these problems. I confess I also struggle with these. In the workplace I find it easy to speak against a
supervisor that does not do things the way I think they should be done. Or a co-worker that has done me wrong and I open my mouth against him to others. Only by walking in the Holy Spirit can we overcome this curse of the tongue. And as the old saying goes," If you can not say anything good, don't say anything at all." How tiring it is to hear someone who does nothing but complain about others. Confess up, you hate to see them (us) coming. "Walk in the Spirit, and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh" James 5:16 This includes all evil speaking.

I shared at the beginning that when the Lord tells us to put off or take off
something, Him gives us something to put back on. He will not leave us naked. So I will continue with the Armor of God in Ephesians.

Prayer: Lord, forgive us of our evil speaking and gossip. We pray that we will walk in your Spirit and you will guide us in how we are to speak. May our speech only glorify you. Amen

No Nudist In The Kingdom: Part Four

"Therefore, laying aside all malice, and all guile, hypocrisy, envy, and all
evil speaking (gossip), as newborn babes desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious." 1
Peter 2:1-3 NKJV

Therefore putting off envy. What person does not know that envy
(also translated as jealously) is bad.

This green-eyed monster (or demon if you wish) has done terrible things through those whom he affects. In verses Matt. 27:18, Mark 15:10 shows that envy in religious leaders had Jesus Christ crucified. It may sound small compared to other sins, but it leads to much larger things, things with eternal consciences.

Paul gives Titus some very good advice for the other leaders. He tells them to remind everyone that before they were in Christ they had envy (among other things) and now that they are heirs according to the hope of eternal life, or saved and made ready for heaven. Titus 3:1-7
Romans 1:29 teaches that the practice of being envious is worthy of death. That sounds pretty rough, but again look what it leads to Christ being crucified. We need to take off envy. It is easy to see others rise in position
at work or Church and envy rise up in us. But we are to put our trust in the
Lord for everything we need. "But seek the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added to you". Luke 12:31 If we trust Him, then we would not be troubled when others are put ahead of us or get recognition. If we do this we may not get much here on earth but we are promised that we will be heirs of the Kingdom. Just trust Him and put envy far from us.

Prayer: Lord, forgive us of our envy. Forgive us for not trusting in you to lift us up. May we only seek to please you and not man? May our trust and lack of envy bring Glory to your name? Amen