If You Can’t Be Nice ~ Be Quiet!

 “How can you say to your brother or sister, ‘Let me take the splinter out of your eye’ when there’s a log in your eye? You deceive yourself! First take the log out of your eye, and then you’ll see clearly to take the splinter out of your brother’s or sister’s eye”. Matthew 7: 4-5 (CEB)

Whenever you catch yourself criticizing another’s words or behavior, it would serve you well to examine where the criticism is coming from, paying special attention to your motives. Why are you voicing disapproval? Are your words meant to build up or tear down? Are they inspired by love and a heartfelt desire to help?

If not – then perhaps you should just be quiet.

2 Corinthians 5:21 teaches; Christ became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Self-righteousness, however,  is not from God. It is puffed up and born from pride. Its roots are evil and it is incapable of bearing good fruit.

There are few things more brutal than an unchecked tongue in the mouth of a self-righteous person. Verbal beat-downs are rarely meant for good, and they are particularly harmful when administered by “mature” Christians ostensibly to correct new believers in the body of Christ. You are not helping. You’re driving them away. Only gentle criticism, delivered in humility can help anyone.

Building yourself up by stepping on the back of another person will Never Please God… and it doesn’t please anyone else either.

I was taught if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all!

Kindness is it’s own reward, but cruelty is a self-inflicted wound. Proverbs 11:17 (The Voice)

 

 

 

 

I’m pouring my heart out and linking up with Things I Can’t Say.