Yesterday, rickevatt who devotes himself to this blog several times each week, referenced some verses in Matthew 12 and verse 36 really caught my attention. It says, “But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken.” I truly do not know how many times or in how many interpretations of the Bible I have read that in, but for some reason it really resonated with me yesterday. God is good that way!!!
I have been involved in sports, health, nutrition, etc., for the better part of my life and to be honest (TBH to be hip like the youngsters) … most of the time I have not been successful. When I was in the military, I worked for a doctor who was very fit and knowledgeable about this stuff; his wife was an incredible athlete and his sister was a smoke jumper! Someone in the office once offered him a piece of candy or something and I remember like yesterday him saying, “I don’t eat empty calories.” It struck me then and although I have remembered that now for 30+ years, I still struggle not to eat empty calories. Yesterday, all of this was brought back to me with the above verse and I realized how eating empty calories (calories with no nutritional value) is so like speaking empty words … words with no emotional or spiritual value. I was going to go into how calories require heat to deal with them and calories in vs calories out, blah, blah, blah, but I think most are aware of that. But … how many times a day do we consider the empty words we speak! Oh Jesus … if I could go back and not say so many of the hurtful things I have said in my life!!!
So … what are “non-empty words” or words that are full of life??? In a limited search and study, it really seems that most words can be or are empty … without action put with them. In James 1:22, the Word tells us, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.”
I leave you with some other verses that address this and pray that we can DO what the Lord says and speak only those words that are FULL not empty! Blessings!!!
1 Cor 13:1-3: If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Ezekiel 33:31: My people come to you, as they usually do, and sit before you to hear your words, but they do not put them into practice. Their mouths speak of love, but their hearts are greedy for unjust gain.
1 John 3:18: Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
Barnabas Man 