WEDNESDAY'S WORD - EDIFY - Sadell Bradley 02/02/16 - New Life Covenant Cincinnati

 

 

 

 

 

EDIFY or EDIFICATION mean to instruct or improve someone morally or intellectually.  From the Old French edifier, "to build" like the word edifice.  The word originally meant "to construct a building" or to "strengthen." 

God is in the building business! He wants families, His Church, and individuals built up into wholeness, strength and maturity. "By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established." (Prov. 23:4) "The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands a foolish one tears hers down." (Prov. 14:1) Jesus said "upon this Rock (the revelation that He was the Christ, the Son of God) I will build My church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. " (Matthew 16:18) He taught His disciples that the wise man builds His house upon the Rock and when storms winds and floods descend upon his life, he does not collapse because his life is founded upon the Rock.  (Matt. 7:24-25)

It's no coincidence that the Lord desires our relationships be about building and not tearing down.  He wants us to focus on strengthening one another spiritually, morally and intellectually.  The way we do that is with our WORDS!  Words have power!  The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit. (Proverbs 18:21) Every time we put our mouths on some person or issue, we are either speaking LIFE or DEATH - building them up or tearing them down. We are called to EDIFY others.

Paul's admonition was very clear: Let no corrupt communication proceed from your mouth.  Other translations say  Don't let any unwholesome, foul launguage, abusive, hateful or filthy words that would hurt someone come out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. (Ephesians 4:29) We are to say words that are fit for the occasion that dispel GRACE- favor that they sometimes don't deserve, and words that embolden them with Divine strength and power where they're weak. 

Oh boy! How? We are so used to judging others, joking, criticizing, "playing the dozens", and propping ourselves and our insecurities up on the backs of people we deem lesser than us... but NONE of this reflects God's kind of life. Let's change our hearts and use our mouths for edification in 2016!