Ephesians 5:4

"Let there be no filthiness (obscenity, indecency) nor foolish and sinful (silly and corrupt) talk, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting or becoming; but instead voice your thankfulness [to God]." Ephesians 5:4

For those of us that really love to talk or we're just not happy... this should be a very encouraging word! God is not only going to keep chipping away at our old, chatty, bla bla bla... even filthy chatter, but He has every intention to replace it with a new vocabulary... a "voice of thankfulness"! I can testify to this... can't you? It doesn't mean that stuff no longer happens that shake our world to talk about, but that now we know that the purpose things happen are for our benefit and unto God's glory... and it's changing the way we talk.

With the spurning of the Holy Spirit now, when things don't go our way, instead of cursing, complaining, and whining, we are able to say, "Thank you Father. We are able, through Christ, to say, "I thought I couldn't live without that, but I see I was wrong," or, "this change has made me less wasteful and to make wiser decisions"... we find reason to continually be thankful, and less angry, less flippant, less comedic and more respectful.

Just as Paul said it would happen earlier in this same letter, we now feel the connection and love for a body of others too, who are being changed the same way, and we are beginning to share praises for what is happening. Thus, it is forcing us to encourage one another in our thankfulness. Though we are not changed all at the same pace or in the same order of need, we find less time for gossip because of a heightened sense of building one another up. We learn to forgive, get use to forgiveness, grow still further in Christ and begin to not even account for things that once would bother us... and we are continually being thankful. Where we once passed communications back and forth with racial and sexual connotations, we find ourselves passing scriptural truths of encouragement and praise. We have less time for things that have nothing to do with the truth, and more time for things that really make a difference to one another. If it's not something that a friend can really lean on in times of trouble, I not longer pass it on. If and when I get something that is not of God, it now goes in the trash... deleted from my computer... replaced in my mind by God's word... and with much Thanks!

But the greatest change is that more and more of our conversation is given to The One Whom Is Doing The Changing... and it is with great Thankfulness!

Let's pick up with Ephesians verse 5:5 next time.

I love you.