The breaking of bread and the sharing of friendship stirs & stokes warm embers of love within us. It’s a beautiful thing to sit down over simple meals in order to fill up on the encouragement and  testimony of saints. We break bread, but without care we can easily break each other’s hearts. Love grants access to deep places in a person and when we walk thoughtlessly we break things easily.

We can be full of encouragement. We can bolster the faith of our friends. We can offer words that inspire courage, renew resolve, stir up zeal, clarify purpose, or we can offer attitudes that bust unity wide open by carelessly using power-filled words.  Every word we speak has power. The words of God give life, and they accomplish purposes. The image bearers, in a real way, reveal who God is when we speak. Every word we speak gives life or stings with death. It builds up, or it tears down. It offers refreshment or condemnation. In grace God has allowed us to have this image bearing gift of speaking. And haven’t we all been guilty of offering words that fall short of God’s glory, our God who gives people only living words?

For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body.

James 3:2

Our perfect God speaks this life-giving truth. No one is perfect in everything they say. Yet we can still learn & grow in the grace of giving life to others with our words. We can use our words to give grace and to keep on giving it. The Body of Christ, the Church, needs the encouragers to rise up and offer the grace the Father has empowered them to give. Not everyone has the spiritual gift of exhortation, so if you have it, use it and use it well. The Church thirsts for it and is strengthened by the use of that gift of the Holy Spirit. When we all use our gifts and allow our words to be directed by Christ the church is built up and the unity within it preserved.

We do not all possess the spiritual gift of encouragement, but we all have the power to encourage (see Romans 12). Let our aim be to break bread often with all kinds of people and let us pour grace into the hearts of others. Let us never be a people carelessly breaking each other’s hearts. And there is sure constant grace in all of this.

Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.

Proverbs 18:21

We are not perfect. So we keep on repenting, keep on changing, keep on trusting that God’s way will be marvelous with the saint and He will help all speak grace to His surpassing glory.

The gift of speaking…the gift of words, was given to image something about God, to reveal to the world how God uses words to give life fully. What if we gave grace too? What if we leaned on God and learned how to rejoice with those who rejoice, truly, and to weep with those who weep? What if we used our words to give life…to share the Gospel, to build up another soul, to offer a smile to weary heart? In this beautiful hard life isn’t some of the best medicine laughter? And doesn’t a cheerful heart seep beautiful onto weary and worn faces? Haven’t you ever seen the transformation from despair to hope, from defeat to victory, from downcast hearts to lifted up faces…it happens in the grace of offering words that give life to the hearer? And isn’t that something we should pursue?

This is why everyday we choose the Word of Christ first. That’s why everyday we ask Him with sincere hearts to let us speak His utterances, because maybe then the world would experience the love of Christ, because words have this beautiful way of giving life.