One aspect of Christian life that is truly important is communication. I think there are two main forms of communication that we have as Christians.
- Our communication with God
- Our communication with others.
Both are equally important to have in our lives, but as I like to always say, “If there are 3 commandments about our relationship with God and 7 about our relationship with one another, which do you think God considers more difficult?” So, while communication with God is an essential part of our Christian walk, it is our communication with one another that probably needs the most practice.
That said, let’s look at our communication with God. As you might all know, communication with God is what we call prayer. We pray to God with petitions, praise, worship, lamentations and on and on. In fact, the letter to the Philippians says just that, that we are to bring everything to God in prayer (Philippians 4:6).
Whatever is going on in our life: good, bad, or indifferent we should bring it to God. Doesn’t God already know? Well yes, but just as a parent might know something a child has done the parent wants to hear it from them to help them. God wants that same relationship with us. God wants us to WANT to bring everything to God in prayer. So, bring everything to God in prayer. It is just a conversation after all. Communication with God is very important for our faith.
As I said before, communication with others can be a bit harder, but is also very important. I want to lean heavily on the Bible right now to really help us understand the importance of communication, good communication. James 1:19 tells us that we should be quick to listen and slow to speak and slow to grow angry and that angry people don’t produce God’s righteousness. If you keep reading James has a lot more to say about it.
Proverbs always has good words of Biblical wisdom and in Proverbs 15:1 it tells us that a sensitive answer turns back wrath, but an offensive word stirs up anger. It too goes on to say some more powerful wisdom on communication.
Ephesians must be one of my favorite letters and Ephesians 4:29 strongly encourages us to not let foul words come out of our mouth and instead only say things that are helpful for building up the community.
There are many more passages in the Bible about communication, but I’ll leave it up to you to look up some more. My point is this: God calls us to be effective and caring communicators with both God and one another. The words we choose to say to one another has a great impact. It also has a huge impact on whether someone wants to consider coming to worship for the first time or learning about God in the first place.
Let us consider the wisdom of the Bible and use it to guide our conversations and interactions with one another. Our words have a huge impact, and we want it to impact God, each other, and those we meet in the best possible way.
My final thought comes from the mission statement of the Grand Canyon Synod in which we reside: Communicate Jesus, Connect People, Create Possibilities. In all that we say and all that we do we need to speak in ways that glorify God, lift one another up and shares the love of Christ to all people.
Blessings,
Pastor Brian
