IGNORING WHAT PEOPLE SAY

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Do not pay attention to every word people say, or you may hear your servant cursing you—for you know in your heart that many times you yourself have cursed others.

Ecclesiastes 7:21-22 

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

How many times a day is someone hurt or offended by something someone said?

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that it happens every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every month of every year. For as long as people have the ability to speak and hear, there will be this matter of people hearing words spoken by others that upset them in some way.

So what’s the remedy? How do we keep from being damaged or insulted or repulsed by what people say?

Our scripture passage from the 7th chapter of Ecclesiastes brings an answer from the Lord:

Do not pay attention to every word people say, or you may hear your servant cursing you—for you know in your heart that many times you yourself have cursed others. Ecclesiastes 7:21-22

God calls us to not pay attention to every word people say. We are to filter what we hear, embracing the positive and divorcing ourselves from the negative. There are two good reasons we need to do this:

First, when we allow the negative to enter into our hearts and minds, we are convicted of the way we have talked about others. We can get upset at people for the things they might say but when we get right down to it, we’re just as guilty ourselves. Everyone at one time or another says something wrong to another. It happens because we’re all sinners and in our sinfulness, we do and say wicked things. It’s easy to get angry at someone when they say something bad about us but maybe not so easy to deal with our own past transgressions. This leads me to the second message the Lord is sending us today in regard to not paying attention to every word that people say.

For if we are constantly listening to the things that people say, where is there room to listen to what the Lord has to say? Doesn’t that count more than anything a mere sinful human could say?

I think we all would agree it is, exponentially so.

Friends, we would be so more better off spending a majority of our time listening to the words our Lord wants to speak to us, words that always seek to lead and guide us, words that always seek to convict and shape us to be who He wants us to be, words that edify and assure and love us in a way that no person can.

Next time you are bombarded by verbal insults or rumors or innuendos or attacks, next time you are flooded with propaganda intended to manipulate your thoughts, opinions and attitudes, take some time to remember these words spoken to us by the Lord God Almighty in Ecclesiastes and then don’t pay attention to what the world is saying to you, listening and receiving the Lord’s words instead.

He will always speak words you need to hear, words that will always bring you to His righteousness, words that will always lead you to a life that is pleasing in His sight.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.

Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com