Proverbs 13:2-3

“From the fruit of their words good persons eat good things,
but the desire of the treacherous is for wrongdoing.
Those who guard their mouths preserve their lives;
those who open wide their lips come to ruin.” NRSV

“By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22-23a NRSV)

Being a Christian isn’t something that happens by magic. What I mean by this is that when we are born again, we don’t just magically <> lose all our faults and become instantly “good.” In fact, choosing between whether or not we sin or we obey God isn’t something that our Father imposes upon us. He asks us to obey and then tells us what that obeying looks like. As Christians, we are taught–by our mentors, by our pastors, and by the Holy Spirit Himself–what our behavior and choices should be. And then, it’s up to us to make those choices . . . or to choose other ways, sinful ways.

I think that, deep inside, we do believe that if we are not exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit that it’s somehow the Spirit’s fault and not ours. That He has somehow decided not to exhibit that fruit within us at this time, but might later on. (I can hear some of you gasping now! “That’s not true. I can’t imagine the Spirit not exhibiting the fruit.” And yet, if we are honest, that’s how we live.) The fact is that either the fruit is ours to choose or for some reason the Spirit is withholding it from us. And if it is ours to choose (which scripture is clear is the truth), then it is we who choose whether or not to exhibit it. In other words, the power to be loving, to be joyful, to be at peace, to be patient, to be kind is already within us living within the Spirit Who lives within us. We merely need to choose to access it, to allow it to live through our actions and choices.

All this is to say that, as believers, we need to choose to be self-controlled, to be self-disciplined. What does it mean to be self-controlled, to be self-disciplined? It means that, instead of waiting for some outside force to control us (“God’s magic pill”), we choose to control, to discipline ourselves. We choose to learn to monitor our own actions and to say “no” to ourselves.

We don’t do that very well.

We are an extremely self-indulgent people. If it is within our power to say “yes” to ourselves, we do it. Our society is permeated with the idea that we deserve it, that we should reward ourselves, that we should take time out for ourselves. And this idea has entrenched itself even within the teachings of the Church. Time for ourselves, time to get away, time to reward ourselves.

Reward ourselves for what? There’s nothing in scripture that talks about rewarding ourselves. Our reward is the dear presence of the Spirit Himself in our lives; our reward is the promise of heaven. Other than that, we should be focused on obedience, on service, on self-sacrifice.

So what does all of this have to do with the scripture in Proverbs? “From the fruit of their words . . . “ What are the fruit of our words? Are we self-controlled enough to speak only those things which are good for those around us? Or when we speak are we toxic? More than toxic, I think many of us try to be manipulative. “If I say this, then that person will change (and not hurt me again).” Or we speak in order to bring them as much hurt as they brought us.

What is the fruit of our words? If we choose to be obedient to the Spirit, then the fruit will be loving, peaceable, kind, gentle, and ultimately, self-controlled. But if we choose to sin, then the result will be hurtful. It will harm those around us and ultimately us.

It isn’t our place to try to change others nor to bring vengeance upon them for what they have done to us. That is the Lord’s responsibility and He does it well. Even if we don’t see them changing as we think they should change, our trust should be in the Lord and in how He is working (for He always is).

“Those who guard their mouths preserve their lives.” James, in his epistle, cautions us–over and over again–to guard our lips: “If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless” (James 1:26 NRSV). What we say is often far more powerful than what we do, for, contrary to the childhood saying, words do hurt. They linger in the air and they hurt, sometimes for a long time. If we are truly Christians, if we truly trust the Lord, we will limit what we say and trust God instead to change those who have hurt us.

© 2008 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved. International copyright reserved. This study may be copied for nonprofit and/or church purposes only without permission when copied in its entirety (including this notice).