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                                Thinking, Speaking, and Acting to Please God (March 7, 2023)

“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my strength and my Redeemer.” (Psalm 19:14)

As sinners saved by God’s grace and redeemed by the precious shed blood of His Son Jesus Christ, Christians have been set apart from the ungodly world in which we live. We have been called to conduct ourselves in a manner befitting our privileged standing as children and heirs of the awe-inspiring God and Creator of the universe. As beloved members of the body of Christ and the family of God, believers must carefully guard the thoughts of our minds and the meditations of our hearts that are outwardly reflected or made manifest by the way we behave. We are Jesus’ earthly ambassadors and have been entrusted with the responsibility of shining the light and passing forward the love of our LORD into a watchful world that quickly recognizes hypocrisy when our words of witness do not align with our actions.

“My tongue shall speak of Your word, for all Your commandments are righteousness.” (Psalm 119:172)

Lest we damage our personal testimony of God’s saving grace through faith in Christ, we must be both proclaimers and doers of the Word. Christians are directed to pursue God’s will by living, as much as humanly possible, according to biblical truth and in humble submission to the Holy Spirit who empowers us to understand and apply Scripture to our daily walk by faith. We live in a world that, subject to Satan’s deception and lies, wants to believe that truth is whatever supports one’s sinful lifestyle. Without God’s Word, it would be impossible to know God’s will, much less live by its absolute truth. We must sift everything through the filter of the Bible in order to lead fruitful lives that please God and magnify His glory. My thoughts, words, and actions, “the meditation of my heart,” must be guided by the divine wisdom of God’s Word.

“When wisdom enters your heart, and knowledge is pleasant to your soul, discretion will preserve you; understanding will keep you, to deliver you from the way of evil, from the man who speaks perverse things…” (Proverbs 2:10-12).





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