We Christians should be known as people who speak positively, those who speak the Word of God into situations, those who speak forth words of life.
We should not be like the man who joined a monastery in which the monks were allowed to speak only two words every seven years. After the first seven years passed, the new initiate met with the abbot who asked him, "Well, what are your two words?"
"Food's bad," replied the man, who then went back to spend another seven-year period before once again meeting with his ecclesiastical superior.
"What are your two words now?" asked the clergyman.
"Bed's hard," responded the man.
Seven years later - twenty-one years after his initial entry into the monastery - the man met with the abbot for the third and final time.
"And what are your two words this time?" he was asked.
"I quit."
"Well, I'm not surprised," answered the disgusted cleric, "all you've done since you got here is complain!"
Don't be like that man; don't be known as a person whose only words are negative.
If you are a member of the "murmuring grapevine," you need to resign. In John 6:43 our Lord instructed His disciples, "Murmur not among yourselves." In Philippians 2:14,15 the Apostle Paul exhorted the believers of his day:
"Do all things without murmurings and disputings: That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world."
Contrary to what you may have heard, talk is not cheap. Talk is very expensive. We should know that our words are powerful. What we say affects what we get from others, and what others get from us. When we speak the wrong word, it lessens our ability to see and hear the will of God.
Excerpt permission granted by Insight Publishing