Deep-End Discipleship

 “ The Lord responded, ‘Don’t say, ‘I’m only a child.’ Where I send you, you must go; what I tell you, you must say. Don’t be afraid of them, because I am with you to rescue you,’ declares the Lord.” - Jeremiah 1:7-8 CEB - Maybe it is a conversation with your parents where you know what you want to say and you are afraid of the ramifications. Perhaps it is a problem you see around you that needs to be taken care of but you are unsure if anyone will take you seriously. Maybe it is a good friend that you know is making an awful decision that you are hesitant to really bring up for fear of messing up your friendship. We all have times in which we feel powerless but know there could be something more for us. Jeremiah was a young prophet that didn’t think he had anything to offer or anything worth saying. Instead God insisted that Jeremiah go where God sends him and speak what God tells him. And then God reassures Jeremiah that he shouldn’t even fear because G...

 “ Don’t go on and on, talking so proudly, spouting arrogance from your mouth, because the Lord is the God who knows, and he weighs every act.” - 1 Samuel 2:3 CEB - What comes from our mouth is so easy to let fly sometimes. The moment a thought comes, it instantly spits out from us. Whether a joke, a blunt truth or even just a raw emotion, the words we say without thinking tend to be the ones that hurt those around us the most. It is easy to rationalize that they are just words, but what we say counts as our actions to God just as much as doing the right thing. In fact, words create life in ourselves and others just as much as they can create death and destruction. We all have some kind of words or messages in our head that lean us towards negative self-thinking. Likewise, we all have moments when friends have spoken loving words to us that have raised our spirits. Each and every word we speak can be a blessing or a curse for those around us. ...

  “ I said, ‘Mourn for me; I’m ruined! I’m a man with unclean lips, and I live among a people with unclean lips. Yet I’ve seen the king, the Lord of heavenly forces!’”  “Then I heard the Lord’s voice saying, ‘Whom should I send, and who will go for us?’ I said, ‘I’m here; send me.’” - Isaiah 6:5 & 8 CEB - We don’t often use the phrase ‘unclean lips,’ but it doesn’t take much to think about what it could mean. In our society, we classify certain things as ‘dirty words’ or ‘dirty language.’ But I do not think cussing or talking about lewd subjects is the only ways our lips can be unclean. How often do we think about the implications of what we say? Sure we realize that we might not always say the best things. Instead of saying a loving or kind word we simple just say something OK. Sometimes we do not say anything at all and hope that is better than what we wanted to say. After all, there is the motherly proverb of “if you can’t say something nice, don...