Latest / The Woman at the Well Ministries Podcast / 634 | Being a Godly Communicator

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634 | Being a Godly Communicator · The Woman at the Well Ministries Podcast

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  Hello, friends, and welcome back to another podcast of Woman at the Well Ministries.
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  Where we believe that all of us have to come to Jesus like the woman at the well in John chapter 4.
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  Our highest priority is making God real in your life. Whether you are listening
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  in our app, in your favorite podcasting app, or on our website at watwm.org,
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  we invite you to sit down with us as we look to the scriptures to learn more
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  about God and to strengthen your daily walk with Jesus Christ.
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  In this episode of the Woman at the Well Ministries podcast,
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  join Kim Miller and Erica Close in a conversation as we walk with Jesus.
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  In today's conversation, we're chatting about what life looks like when we truly guard our speech.
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  Well, thank you all for joining us in this podcast of Woman at the Well Ministries.
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  I am Erica Close, and I am here with Kim Miller.
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  Hello, and thank you so much. It's such a pleasure to be able to just spend
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  some time talking about an ouchy subject.
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  It is an ouchy subject. I believe I just said something to that effect just
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  a little while ago as we were discussing what we were going to do in this podcast.
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  And I hope that those of you that are listening listened to Monday's podcast.
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  Monday's podcast was number 633.
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  And it was entitled Guard Your Speech. And so what I wanted to do today in today's
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  podcast was just talk a little bit about some of the topics that you brought up.
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  And today's podcast is called Being a Godly Communicator.
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  And I was thinking as you were doing the podcast for Monday,
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  just about how often we talk about the importance of being a good communicator.
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  Pretty much daily in our professional lives. And being a good communicator is so important.
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  And the ability to communicate information clearly and to explain things well,
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  is such a valuable skill.
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  But I think it's incredibly important to sort of pause for a minute and talk
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  about the difference between being a good communicator and being a godly communicator.
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  They definitely are not always the same. They're not.
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  If you are communicating godly, you will communicate well. That is true.
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  But just because you're communicating well in the eyes of the world does not
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  mean you're communicating godly.
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  Right, because often being a good communicator is being able to express what
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  you think, right, get your point across.
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  But I think in contrast to that being a godly communicator is,
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  always getting his point across exactly because a good communicator is able
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  to make the hearer understand what it is they want them to understand
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  a godly communicator is able to make the hearer understand what god wants them to understand and
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  you're a lot different than I am if that's 100 who you are exactly exactly I
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  think what's important, too, about being a godly communicator is that,
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  whether or not we are directly speaking,
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  about the Lord,
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  we are always communicating who he is and who he is in our lives.
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  Just by simple word choice. Right. You are able to demonstrate your relationship with the Lord.
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  I think, and I said this in that podcast that you referred to earlier.
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  I think that people, when they hear, you know, don't let any corrupt communication
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  come from your mouth, they immediately go to profanity, cursing.
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  That kind of thing. I think they forget about lying, gossiping,
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  stretching the truth. I think I could still...
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  Being mean. I could still talk pretty ugly and not say a curse word.
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  Do you know what I mean? Absolutely. You can make that happen.
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  You can tear somebody down.
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  I believe you mean that personally, that I, Kim Miller, can tear someone down,
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  and then when you repeat what I've said, nobody thinks she said anything bad.
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  That's called tone. Yes.
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  But I think it's an important point. I'm sorry to say it out.
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  But I think it's an important point, right? It's never just about cursing.
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  It's about what you leave them thinking and feeling.
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  I mean, I can say, wow, that sure looks good today.
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  And none of those words were harsh. I wish y'all could have seen that example.
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  None of those words are harsh. Right, it's tone.
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  Well, and today, I mean, that means normally, you know, wear a nice shirt or something.
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  And, you know, these backhanded compliments, which is what that was,
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  things that, you know, or you can just bring up a subject that,
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  you know, that person's not comfortable talking about.
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  Right. There's no love in that. There's no love in it. I mean,
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  my mother had a statement that if we all lived by it and used that practice,
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  we would do better in our godly communication.
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  Exactly what you're going to say. My mom was, where is the love of God in that?
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  And she wanted an answer.
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  Right. And it was about everything.
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  It was about like all things you were doing in your life. It didn't matter.
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  Where is the love? And she meant that. Where is the love of God in that?
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  Because only the things done for God will last.
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  And so she expected every word you said to edify others, point them to the Lord,
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  and have the love and grace of God in it. And God gave her me.
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  It's hilarious. She had her work cut out. I'd say she did a pretty amazing job. Thank you.
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  Well, I think that, you know, even if we were to just end this, you know,
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  this part of this conversation with, you know, remembering where is the love
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  of God in that, I think that pretty much describes a godly communicator.
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  It'll stop you in your communication tracks. It will. It absolutely will.
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  It absolutely will. Well, in...
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  Monday's podcast, you asked a lot of questions of our listeners.
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  They were somewhat, you know, rhetorical questions, but they were powerful questions.
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  I would say toe stompers. I believe when you finished, I said something like,
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  my toes are bleeding. Thank you very much.
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  But I'd like us to just kind of talk about those questions for a little while
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  as we go through this podcast.
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  And one of the first questions that you asked was, where would we be if God
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  responded to us the way we respond to each other?
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  And you told a pretty powerful story in Monday's podcast.
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  And the whole time you were preaching for Monday's podcast, I was thinking about
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  an encounter I had had that day, that day at work, where I basically just got upset,
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  essentially because, I mean, for all intents and purposes, I got upset about
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  something because I wasn't included on an email.
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  Saying it now seems ridiculous, like really ridiculous. It seemed ridiculous
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  when you told me to, just so you know.
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  But when you asked that question, you know, where would we be if God responded
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  to us the way we respond to each other?
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  I was so upset that I had not been included on this thing.
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  And I thought, as soon as you said that, I thought, what if God got angry at
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  me every time I didn't include him in something?
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  Now my toes are bleeding. Well, yeah.
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  And that really that really stuck with me and I think when we're thinking about
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  what it means to guard our speech to be a godly communicator,
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  in order to get that done we often need to choose to look at how we're speaking and what we're speaking,
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  from a perspective that is not our own But if we look at what we're saying from his perspective,
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  it will probably change what we say.
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  Thinking before you speak and thinking in terms of, you know,
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  it was a while back when everybody had the WWJD, but what would Jesus do?
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  I don't know why that fad went away. That was very helpful for me to look down.
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  Help me. Where's the love of God in that? It was easy to remember.
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  But if we did that, you know, and the problem is, is we are great at spitting out words.
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  Doesn't mean we're great communicators. Right. Some of us are just very verbose.
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  But we're not so good at conveying the love and the grace and the mercy when
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  we are stressed, scared, or angry. Angry.
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  But in that whole Ephesians 4.29, which reads,
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  Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good
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  to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace.
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  Minister is a servant, that it may serve grace unto the hearers.
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  You know, it's like, give me a little ketchup with the fries.
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  Give me grace with the words.
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  Honestly, the grace is the main thing and the words is the ketchup.
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  And he's asking us, If you're my ambassador, if you're the light of the world,
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  letting your light shine, it should be pointing them to me.
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  Matthew 5, 16 is about pointing people to Jesus.
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  And unless we are speaking words of love, grace, and mercy, that spotlight isn't on Jesus.
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  One of the questions that I wanted us to talk about related to the Think Before
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  You Speak was basically, how do we stop ourselves when we just really want to say something?
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  How do we get that godly pause between the hurt or the fear or the anger and our mouth opening?
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  It's a discipline, and it's a purposed position from which you speak.
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  And there'll be times that you don't get it right, but if you continue to practice
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  that and continue to purpose that in your heart.
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  And another verse that I think comes in so well in this conversation that rarely
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  does anyone interject it here is Psalm 4610.
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  Be still and know that I am God.
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  Be quiet and allow God to come through you.
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  Be still and know that i'm god means be still and you're my ambassador you're my light,
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  i'm in you so you need to let me out and he comes out in our actions and our
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  words be still quiet the flesh,
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  and unleash the holy spirit.
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  And how we do that is to purpose in our heart. We pray and ask for God to help us.
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  And when we mess up, we own it.
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  We ask for forgiveness from God. In 1 John 1, he says, If we confess our sins,
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  he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
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  And we ask for forgiveness from the person that we have diminished our witness to.
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  And a good apology has three parts. I'm sorry it was my fault and how can I make it up to you.
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  And when you practice that and you purpose in your heart every day to do the
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  will of God and you ask the Holy Spirit to help you and you're willing to be
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  obedient when you hear the word of God,
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  it's not going to take a long time till you are sprinkling your speech with
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  his grace and his mercy and his love people will notice,
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  I think, too, when you talked about the Ephesians verse that talks about ministering
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  and you talked about serving,
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  I think so often, Ephesians 4.29, so often when we get in those situations and we're engaged.
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  Fearful, or we're angry. I think our focus gets switched. Our focus gets switched,
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  and our focus gets switched to ourselves. Correct. And off of the people,
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  and the people that we're serving. Right.
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  So we're not thinking. It's a fight or flight. I have to win.
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  And when you have to win, you have elevated yourself above God. Right.
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  And you've certainly elevated yourself above. Your fellow man.
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  Your fellow man that's in that room. Like, I think of, you know,
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  me getting so upset i was in a room with three other people when i got upset and i made that,
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  assumption i made yeah i made but i also i mean i'll be blatantly honest i mean
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  i kind of just made that about me right and not about them when it was just
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  information i just needed to take that information and.
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  And we need to be others focused right and that's that's counterintuitive to
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  us that's not how we're wired,
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  but we're new creatures in christ jesus according to second corinthians 5 17
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  and that's how we are rewired and we're rewired when we,
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  when we're convicted like as much as my toes were bleeding at the end of listening
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  to you record monday's podcast,
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  i'm so thankful because i'm not going to forget that i'm not going to forget how my how my toes felt.
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  And that sort of leads me to the next question. And you talked about this a
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  minute ago when you were talking about apologies, but I wanted to know,
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  what do we really do when we, when we blow our witness like that?
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  Like, how do we course correct? And I think you, you answered that already partially
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  with, I think you can do permanent damage.
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  And I think.
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  Now would be a good time to start understanding that your purpose on life is to give others Jesus.
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  So you must be disciplined and dedicated to making decisions that align with
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  his will and his commandments.
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  But you're not perfect.
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  And generally explaining that to someone and owning your mistake.
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  Will allow them to forgive and see you maybe even as a stronger person of God
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  because only God would prompt you to do that and only someone who loved him that would do that.
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  But your reputation and your witness of how your heart is, we get caught up
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  on our actions. And I've been guilty of that many times. I'm not going there. People think I'm bad.
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  You know, we need to go to where God sends us and bring the people to where he is.
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  And we need to not worry about those things, but we do need to worry about what
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  have I done and what have I said that is either going to lend credulence to
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  me telling them Jesus loves them and I love him,
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  or totally destroy those words having any impact.
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  Because there's no Switzerland, and there's no neutral ground.
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  You're either living a life that supports people believing the relationship
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  your words are saying you have, or you're not.
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  It's black or white. I think it's important, too, just to kind of emphasize
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  that what you just said about it, it's not really about our actions.
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  You know, the problem comes before our actions. The problem is our heart.
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  And your heart is conditioned by what you allow in it.
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  Which goes back to the guarding our hearts, guarding our speech,
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  guarding our eyes, guarding our ears.
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  Because Luke 6.45 tells us that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh.
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  So what I am feasting on is what's going to come out.
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  If I'm feasting on worldly things, I'm going to have a worldly mouth.
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  And if I'm feasting on godly things, I'm going to have a godly mouth.
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  And you can fool yourself all you want to saying that you can curse and use
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  profanity and do whatever, and it really doesn't matter. The only person you're fooling is yourself.
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  Because the world knows that that is not acceptable communication from a child
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  of God, even those who aren't saved. Right.
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  And it doesn't serve any purpose.
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  I think the last thing that I just want to touch on before we close out today,
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  is just the statement you made in Monday's podcast where you said,
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  our words tell others exactly who we are and what we think of Jesus.
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  That's correct. It's an ouchie.
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  But I think it's an ouchie that we all need to hear. If any part of us is a
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  true reflection of our hearts, it is our words.
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  I would say more than any other part of us.
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  We don't have control over a lot of the ways that we look. Obviously,
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  we can be in control over how we dress and how we fix our hair and do our makeup.
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  But I'm always going to be short. You're always going to be short.
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  But you don't have control over a lot, right? We don't have control over our height.
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  We don't have control over, generally, the color of our hair.
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  But You know, we have 100% control over our words.
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  Therefore, they are the thing that is most reflective of who we are and what we think of Jesus. Amen.
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  I hope that you all take the opportunity to go back and listen to Monday's podcast.
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  It's a toe stomper, I'm not going to lie. but I really believe that it is one
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  that will absolutely change the way you think about what you do with your words,
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  and what it really means to be a godly communicator thank you so much for joining
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  us today more than anything we pray that you remember that you are loved and that Jesus loves you.
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  Thank you for joining us in today's podcast. You can visit the show notes for
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  quotes from today's podcast and scripture references.
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