Mouths - Yours & Mine

In nature you find some wicked, nasty looking mouths. Like the mouth of the shark someone landed on deep sea fishing boat I was on, rows and rows of serrated teeth forming the gateway to a nasty abyss. That possum who cornered Susie in the staircase of our apartment years ago, what nasty, slimy, snarling mouth. Don’t forget the hippo, what a mouth, no wonder it’s one of the most dangerous creatures in African rivers. Gators, snakes, piranhas, komodo dragons, or go no further than the bats living under my roof tiles with their sick toothy grins. But the nastiest, most wicked mouths are found among our own species, no creatures in the animal kingdom can compare.A shark can maim, kill, and eat you with its mouth but it is incapable of spewing lies, planting rumors, twisting the truth, wounding the soul, destroying trust, shamelessly exaggerating, deceiving, maligning, misleading, making all it up, embellish, being malicious. A komodo dragon’s mouth might be full of deadly bacteria but it will never repeat what shouldn’t be repeated, deny what is true, incite riots, degrade others, dehumanize, make empty or false promises, dish out abuse, fuel anger, slander, or encourage wickedness and violence, no that would be our mouths. A possums mouth will never filled with insincerity, deliberate barbs, say too much or say too little, it won’t circumvent, euphemize, minimize, evade, or inflame. Those bats will never stay silent when they ought to speak, issue empty apologies, spit out meaningless platitudes, speak without thinking, talk behind someone’s back, , gossip, or talk to everyone except who they should be talking to, no that would us.No wonder God’s word addresses our mouths, “Curses and blessings out of the same mouth! My friends, this can't go on” James 3:10 (MSG). If there is any part of us that needs redemption surely our mouths need it. If we are serious about living the way God wants us to live then our mouths will have to become a construction site, we will have to schedule ourselves with a spiritual dentist, oral surgeon, orthodontist, and dental hygienist. We will have to have things pulled, implanted, filled, drilled, shifted, wired shut, and whitened. We will have to acquire new habits to keep our mouths clean and alter their use. How much treatment, learning, and change do you think you will need to make the following a reality? “We will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church.” “Each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor …” “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” Ephesians 4:15a (NLT), 25a, 29 (NIV).If you want to see a lot of different creatures with nasty, wicked, bizarre, and frightening mouths I recommend you go visit a zoo, or where people gather, or sadly often times the church. But this should not be so, the church should be the place you’ll find the most amazingly beautiful mouths. May that be true of the church you are attending because you are attending it.To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans