Dirty

ALL – Psalm 69:15-36
ALL – Proverbs 24:6-7
OT – Isaiah 51:1-53:12
NT – Ephesians 5:1-33

Interesting passage for the day: Dirty stories, foul talk and coarse jokes—these are not for you. Instead, remind each other of God’s goodness and be thankful. – Ephesians 5:4, The Living Bible

Thought: I take a pretty strong stand against Christians using swear words. And some people close to me have challenged me on it, asking me whether swear words are inherently any worse than what I consider to be less offensive words—words that I use in pretty much the same way.

And you know what? In some ways, my friends are right. They’re right that when I use “cleaner language” to express my own unclean thoughts, I’m still sinning. I may be less offensive to other people, but my heart still has major problems.

So is that a justification for swearing?

I don’t think so.

I think that both my friends and I are called to clean up our act, and zealously. Here’s a theological truth that anyone can understand: God is GOOD. Seriously good. And we’re His children. Would He share our language—whether the less-filtered language my friends don’t mind or the cleaned up versions I use? Would God appreciate our dirty stories or foul jokes?

God is good. And we are His. We aren’t missing out on anything by giving up our dirty stories and foul language. We should be thankful that such a wonderful God is willing to associate with us, rather than upset that being associated with Him means saying no to our filthy hearts.

Question: How comfortable are you with your personal degree of impurity? What have you learned about putting off unclean thoughts and words and putting on purity? What’s your role? How does the Gospel fit into this discussion?

To review the Bible reading plan options, please visit http://tinyurl.com/yj2o7jz.