In the War of Words, It's {Still} Time for a Better Word

I love words, but I am so tired of them. Seriously, the twisting and manipulating, the demeaning and degrading, it all has me completely worn out.

I wrote a blog post last year entitled In the War of Words, It’s Time for a Better Word, and I guess you could consider this post a part 2, because ironically, I have a few more words to say about these wars our words are waging. The emotional ammunition with which we keep firing back keeps us all raging. It’s a vicious cycle. Ya wanna know why?

Because we keep opening our mouths before we open God’s Word, or rather, we may be opening It, but we certainly aren’t doing what It says. 

And since this battle we find ourselves in “is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12), we must “put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, we may be able to stand our ground, and after we’ve have done everything, to stand.” (Ephesians 6:13)

Why are we fighting with our words when God has called us STAND on His Word and SPEAK His Word? It is the only offensive weapon in our armor. We must wield well the Sword of the Spirit if we are to defeat the enemy, the god of this world, the author of lies, the deceiver of souls by taking down his strongholds, dividing his lies from God’s truth, and setting his captives free to experience true victory in Jesus.

Yes, indeed, the very Word of God is sharper than any double edge sword, and It is the only weapon we need to defeat the enemy. Our words are merely weapons against each other and do nothing to defeat the real enemy.

We must stop using OUR words (our explanations and definitions) because they are skewed ever so slightly to fit into OUR point of view, and they will always fall short of the target of the enemy.

Nuance and semantics allow us to say a whole lot while really saying nothing at all. Because without the power of God behind them, words will always fall short. They will always be misunderstood. They will always be used to confuse. They will always be manipulated to elevate one group/person while putting down the next. It is simply the way of the world, and our words will always go that way apart from God’s Word and His Way.

Pastor Green brought a word from the Word this past Sunday as we sat in the book of Jonah with the man of the hour himself, smack dab between Nineveh and Tarshish and wrestled with our own disobedient tendency in light of Jonah’s disobedient reality.

Pastor pointed out on a map the distance between Nineveh, where God told Jonah to go, and Tarshish, where Jonah went instead. The irony of the distance between the two cities was that they could not have been any farther apart! Tarshish was clear across the island on the exact opposite side.

And honestly that’s what I’m seeing lots of “Christians” today do, too. Not only are they acting out in disobedience (by way of a direct deviation from God’s Word and His commands), literally going further and further away from His standard and His way, but they are hightailing it at full speed in the exact opposite direction. They are believing worldly ideologies and perpetuating these lies by preaching them like they are gospel truth when in reality they couldn’t be further from the truth!

The Gospel draws people to Christ, while these false gospels divide and distract people, creating a greater distance from God and each other.

I’ve spoken out against CRT (Critical Race Theory) in the past, and I’ll continue to do so, because frameworks like these literally do a work that is opposite the work of the cross by creating classes and defining people by intersectionality, not uniting them by God’s impartiality.

Continuing to perpetuate these false gospels is taking Christians “straight to Tarshish” when God has called us to “go to Nineveh.” I know I’m speaking metaphorically, but disobedience is disobedience, in Bible times and in 2021.

We will continue to divide if we continue in pride — choosing our way over God’s way will always cause us to disobey. The only way back to the Only right way is repentance — a mid course correction to put us back in the right direction. Repent. Turn around. Start doing what God’s Word instructs us to do.

And that’s why our words must cease and His Word must increase as He takes His rightful seat on the very throne of our heart ruling over our mind until the words they produce are completely subject to His Word and all it’s truth.

I will end with this quote from Pastor Green because in this war of words, it truly says it all...

“If you are not willing to share the Gospel truth with others, either you don’t believe It or you don’t love them.“

It definitely convicted me. Do I believe God’s Word? Do I love others? The most powerful and effective way I can love others is to simply lead them to Jesus. My words have no power to do that apart from His Word that is all powerful and all sufficient to do exactly what it says it will do...

“Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” ~ Isaiah 55:6-11 ESV