This is something that I am beginning to hear more and more. Now before anybody accuses me of being self righteous, I am not perfect and I sin everyday just like everyone else.
My gripe is not so much with the fact that a christian might cuss, but their attitude towards it. It is as if, some try to justify it, some just let it roll off their tongue with no sense of regret at all. It has so much been engrained into their daily speech that some are probably not even aware that anything is wrong. For the world, cussing and swearing is the norm but for us who call ourselves Christians, we should be different and those around us should notice that difference.
The Bible is very clear as to what our speech should be like:
Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. (col 4:6)
Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. (eph 4:29)
Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit (1 Peter 3:10)
With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. 10 From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. (james 3:9-10)
There is no shortage of scriptures that admonish us not to cuss or swear. So when we do, what does it reveal about us? Let’s see Jesus had to say on the matter
“For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, 44 for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. 45 The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. (Luke 6:43-45)
It reveals something about our heart condition and with that, we should perform some self examination. The first question you should ask yourself is how do you feel about swearing? Do you hate when you do it or do you try to justify it. This is one of the signs of being a christian. Your relationship with sin should not be the same as before. One of the triggers for bad language is because we have a lack of self control (which is one of the fruit of the spirit) , especially when we are angry (one of the works of the flesh) and its so easy to ‘put down one’s Christianity’ and pick it back up when we have simmered down.
If you have a problem with swearing, first of all, see it as God sees it and that is sinful. The next thing you should do is repent of this sin and then take the problem to God in prayer, sincerely asking him to help you to stop. Read James 3 about taming the toungue.
If you are struggling with swearing, that is a good sign. Why? Because it is a struggle. All Christians struggle with sin, whether it be swearing, lying, gossiping, watching porn and the list goes on. The problem starts when there is no struggle. When you are comfortable with your sin. It could indeed be a sign that you may not be a christian at all and could be a sign of a false conversion.
So remember, “whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (Colossians 3:17)
This is the thing that many people do but don’t really talk about, especially women. It’s looked on as not ladylike and not pure. It’s a shameful thing for many women and men alike. I struggled with masturbation for many years but this wasn’t the only sexually immoral thing that I was enslaved to. I started masturbating as early as 7th or 8th grade, but overall my imprisonment to lust started as early as 4 or 5 years of age. When I was a little girl, I had a friend that I played with. Something must have happened to her because it was from playing with her that I had my first sexual experience. After this one time experience I wasn’t the same and I developed homosexual tendencies as well. The seed of lust was planted and grew to maturity in my heart. I went from “humping” the floors, to sexually stimulate myself, to full on masturbation, which became my most shameful secret. The frequency to which I masturbated and the degree to which I did it was so bad that I actually ended up tearing the tissue on my clitoris. This sent me into depression for months because I thought I had mutilated myself. I had contemplated suicide because of it but I still didn’t stop. The real battle began for me when I desired freedom. In the summer of 2005, while on a mission project, God began to work in my life. When I was there, I met a woman named Kate, who shared her testimony of being delivered from masturbation. This was huge news for me because, untill that point, I had believed that I was the only one in the world who did it. Somehow I bought into the lie that I’d never be free and that if I ever told anybody what I’d been doing nobody would love me or at least they wouldn’t look at me the same way. I had a lot to confess. You see I was enslaved not only to masturbation but to pornography, sexual fantasies, and a lot of other things I wanted to keep on the dark. During the days that followed, God was pressing me to bring it to the light, to confess it. Fear was also there with me. You see, I was afraid to expose myself. This fear wrapped around me like a boa constrictor in order to keep my mouth shut. I was so shamed and afraid of being condemned that I’d be scared to write my struggle with masturbation in my journal because I feared someone would find it. I was in torment. I heard a message that talked about keeping things in the dark. That was the word I needed and I had courage to tell somebody. The first person I told was Kate. Next, I told my roommate and few other girls at the project. I later confessed it my own sister, but this confession was only half the battle. Then I tried to break free, I found that those same desires tracked me down like a Mississippi Slave catcher. I had never had so much temptation to sin by masturbating in my whole life. I kept giving in and giving in. It was hard to last one day, much less two, without doing it. This lasted from June 2005 to September 2005. Until for 2 and half months, I managed to stop. Temptations were strong. There were times I’d have to run out of my dorm room or find a public place to be in because I couldn’t be alone when I was tempted. This was huge for me because I was used to falling to this sin daily. However, I backslide due to unforgiveness. Sin had a snow ball effect in my life after that because an old habit had revived. Old habits revived because old reasons why I masturbated revived too. I’d masturbate like people eat comfort food. I’d do it because I was bored or upset. It was like how an alcoholic drink is to a drunk— I’d do it to forget. When I fell after a time of victory, I was constantly taunted with: “See you’ll never be free. You’re always going to be like this.” This sin would seduce me to lay with it then condemn me when I did. I’d struggle trying to go to God. I felt so dirty and so full of despair after I gave in to my own sinful lust, that I’d pull the cover over myself to hide. I didn’t want God to look at my filth. I hated it. It was like an abusive relationship that I couldn’t get out of and didn’t know how. I was losing hope. This lasted from late December 2005 to May 2006. After this, I run into a ministry that talked about being free from sin. The victory for me came one day as fear was telling me “you may have stopped for now. But you will fall” But God helped me realize something that I hadn’t before when He told me “You never have to do it again.” I never knew I was free from sin. That I actually had a choice. Therefore, I never had to do it anymore. The reason why I have that choice is because of Christ who has made me free from sin. I didn’t have to perform every whim of my own sinful desires. Now I’ve been free for 2 and a half years. I’m free to talk about it. I thought I’d go to my grave with this sin. If your dealing with this, you need to confess it to God, confess everything. God is so serious about this sin . He said ” if your eye—even your good eye —causes you to lust, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. ” ( Matthew 5:29) and in Job 31:11 its says” For lust is a shameful sin,a crime that should be punished. The heart of lust is so wicked. In Romans 3, its says that people didn’t want to honor God as God. One of the firsts sins it lists after that is sexual sin. Its a form of self worship. Its may sound crazy but think about this, why do we watch people sin sexually or even ourselves sin sexaully? I ‘d get that hot and heavy feeling from just watching myself masturbate, from sexually admiring some other part of my body, or from watching porn. . In my heart was rebelling against God because I really wanted to be God, you know, do what felt right to me. That’s the heart of this sin. Please don’t take this lightly. Self worshippers and sexually immoral will end up in Hell. But those that agree with God, who confess and forsake it, will have mercy.
