"SPEAK A KIND WORD TODAY" - Hebrews 3:13

"...encourage one another daily,

as long as it is called Today

so that none of you may be

hardened by sin's deceitfulness."

The verse on the pillow is my "pollyanna" version - the reality of the latter part takes some time to ponder.  It never occurred to me that when I didn't speak a word of encouragement, it might be because of my own hard heart!  The author was warning Christians in the book of Hebrews to not stop following Christ and encouraging others along the way.

Encouraging words are hard to come by these days.  You more likely hear words of criticism from our politicians, trash talk from our sports stars, disappointing sarcasm even among family and Facebook friends and awful verbal assaults on the television.

One of my favorite commercials shows a mom and dad, all dressed up, in an audience looking around for their very young son who had disappeared.  The stage curtain opens and there he is, all dressed up and sitting at the piano playing a very elementary "Chop Sticks".  With a horrified look on their faces, they see an tuxedo-clad elderly gentleman come out from stage left, stand behind the boy and say: "Go ahead", and he began to play an elaborate accompaniment to the same song making a beautiful sound.  The slogan said: "ENCOURAGEMENT: PASS IT ON!"

St. Frances de Sales said: "Our words are a faithful index of the state of our souls".  Nancy Leigh DeMoss says in THE POWER OF WORDS: "critical heart ~critical words... mean heart~mean words... spiritual heart~spiritual words... kind heart~kind words...".

Joe Stowell in THE WEIGHT OF YOUR WORDS" SAYS:

"A raging river can be destructive and demolish

everything in its path...or it can be channeled to turn a mill

or produce electricity.  The 'energy' produced by our

words can be a ...gift to others or it can knock

them off their feet emotionally."

Let's go find someone to speak a kind word to today!

For further study:  Proverbs 15:4, Proverbs 16:24, Proverbs 18:21, Psalm 141:3, Isaiah 1:17, Ephesians 4:29, 1 Thes. 4:18, 2 Tim 4:2-3, Hebrews 10:23-24, James 3:3-6.

Be blessed in your understanding of God's word.

Love,

Holly