THINK TOGETHER.
Have you ever been gossiped about? How did it make you feel?
READ TOGETHER
Proverbs 18:8. The words of a whisperer are like delicious morsels; they go down into the inner parts of the body.
In the New Testament it says that we all have sin living inside of us. Even if you have Jesus living inside of you, there is still sin living there too. For Christians this means that there is always a battle going on, a battle between the Holy Spirit and the “flesh” (sin). That is why even though we want to do what is right, we often fail. And one of the areas we fail in a lot is gossip.
Solomon calls it whispering here in Proverbs 18:8. What he means is someone who goes around talking about everyone else. Why do we do this? Mostly because it makes us look better when we talk about other’s mistakes or how they got into trouble. It feels good to know something about someone that nobody else knows, a secret. And so we tell it to others to make ourselves look good.
But here’s the problem, what is said about others are like delicious morsels that go down into the inner parts of the body. What does that mean? It means that once gossip is spoken you can never take it back. The damage done cannot be reversed. It is inside of the hearers and being “digested.” Just like once food is in your stomach you can’t get it back (not without a mess), gossip, once a person hears it, will affect how we think about that others person for a long, long time.
How do we cure our desire for gossip? We have to let Jesus fill us with his confidence so that we don’t have to make others look bad in order for us to feel good. We have to also let him fill us with compassion that will protect others’ feelings instead of hurting their feelings by talking about them behind their back.
Can you give up on gossip? With Jesus and his love you can.
Because of Jesus we can feel good without making others look bad.
With Jesus we can give up gossip.
DO SOMETHING TOGETHER
Show your children the toothpaste illustration about words. Squeeze some toothpaste out of the tube. Ask you kids to put the toothpaste back into the tube. Our words are the same – once they are out of our mouths it is impossible to put them back.
PRAY TOGETHER
Jesus, guard my heart with your love, and keep me from gossip. Amen.
TLICfamily 