JULY 28, 1 Corinthians 12:8-11, Proverbs 25:11 

One gift of the Holy Spirit is the word of godly speech. A person given this gift will be able to speak carefully and wisely, with guidelines learnt from God’s Word. Now usually, kids your age are not associated with wisdom. But dear child, if you are a child of the Lord, and if you really want to honour God in your life, one way to demonstrate that is to have godly speech! The Lord Jesus himself indicated clearly the tremendous significance of a man’s words when he taught that evil words and good words should not come from the same person. His illustration was simple but true - a tree is known by its fruit and it will only bear one type of fruit; good or bad.

How to have godly speech? First of all, you must want to have that. Secondly, pray that God will help you understand the importance of godly speech. You may hear phrases like, “Oh, my goodness!” or worse, “Oh my God!”, or other such phrases. Please do not think they sound “cool” in any way and therefore adopt them. Many who use such phrases may not even understand what they mean!

We are all very careful what goes into our mouths. We prefer to eat what we like and not what we do not wish to. If we are so vigilant about what goes in, how about what comes out of our mouth?

Thought: May my speech bring glory to God!

Prayer: Heavenly Father, help me to control my speech so that others can be encouraged by what they hear from me, and give me the courage to examine myself to see how I can improve in this area. This I pray in Jesus’name,Amen.