Gossip

Ephesians 6:12

"For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places."


Last night I had a phone call from a good friend who, while attending a church in another town, had heard a long list of gossip about our church. She called concerned with what she had heard. All this past week, I have continued to hear stories of 'whats going on.' I don't need to (or want to) hear it. Some of what I've heard is so off the wall, that it is truly unbelievalbe. It saddens me greatly. What is it about human nature that drives us to destroy those around us. We say that we are concerned for others, or that we are motivated by 'love' for the people involved in the situation. Really? Are we? Sure, in life many problems and situations will arise within the church and they do and will need to be adressed by those in authority. I have been on both sides of this, I am guilty of participating in gossip and I have been the one everyone has talked about. I'm pretty sure we have all been on both sides. What I have noticed lately is that once these situations have been dealt with the talk is still continuing, stories get exaggerated, people become angry, hurt and eventually nobody trusts anybody.

Gary and I had a long talk about this last night. We love our church communitiy so much and we don't want to see us self-destruct. After all we are the body of Christ. It is completely understandable that we want to destroy evil, especiailly if we feel and see it invading the lives of those we love. My question would be, how does God want us to do that? Our own (physical) bodies will tend to push the impurities within us to the surface. The same happens within the body of Christ. So....who are we to trust to expose truth, lies and push out the impurities? It is not our job to dig deeper into everyone elses lives to expose them. Sometimes God will use us, but even then we need to be sure that whatever needs to be said is done in love and not out of selfish motivation.

When Gary and I opened our bible together last night we immediatly came to Ephesians 6:12. Pretty powerful words. What is the battle? The word of God is pretty clear. It's not against flesh and blood. Hey.....it's not about the people! It's a spiritual battle that we are called to fight through prayer. We are attacking the wrong thing. God will push the impurities to the surface while we remain on our knees praying for truth in love. Do we trust Him?

The rest of Ephesians 6 speaks of wearing our armour....TRUTH, RIGHTEOUSNESS, FAITH, PEACE, SALVATION, and the SWORD OF HIS SPIRIT which is the word of God. Verse 18 says "Pray all the time......and keep praying earnestly for all christians everywhere."

I know that Gary & I needed to be reminded of this last night and it did bring us to our knees. We are ALL family and we will spend eternity together. Let's not bring each other down with our words. Let's fight the battle we are called to fight.