Good morning DPR, I believe you had a great weekend, happy new month. I Can’t believe we’re in August already, this month makes it 4 months since Divine Perspective started and I’m glad about how far God has brought us, He can only take us further. Today we continue on our Character Series, and like I said on Friday, we will consider the subject of gossip which I have tagged; What No One Told You. Hmmmn, not to worry, you’d understand me soon enough and find out the mystery, just follow me closely. I’ve searched through scriptures and I realise that God has almost a zero tolerance for a lose mouth, not like He tolerates other tendencies of sort, but He pays particular attention to some character flaws that have the potential of causing more damage than others. For example, you’d find a lot of scriptural verses dealing with the issue of fornication in the Bible, both from the old and new testaments. The reason is not because fornication has a bigger badge of status in the rank of sins than others, but simply because fornication leads to several other things God doesn’t want for His children. It’s like a slippery slope. So God pays some extra attention to some tendencies simply because of their consequences on His beloved Children.
The demand for Holiness is not to put a strain on us, it’s actually to make our lives a lot easier and Godlike. Afterall that’s what Grace was designed to do, to make us Godly in this present world. Titus 2:12. So why does God pay so much attention to the subject of gossip in the Bible? It comes in different shades of description, whether in the old or new testament… But the identity is the same; “gossip”. We live in a time when and where the “gossip” industry is a serious money making industry. We all have an idea the fortune Aunty Linda has made and is making from that “ministry”, channel E! and some other gossip stations and blogs alike. What makes gossip so exciting and tempting to participate in? Because trust me, gossip is really tempting… I’m no saint in this matter either, we’re all walking towards perfection. It would shock you to even find it the most prevalent in the church, all wrapped up in the cloak of “hmmmn, brethren, we need to pray for sister Gladys, I heard she…” It’s really funny how people hear something, not confirmed to be true about someone they know and they think the best place to pray for them is at a meeting of the “brethren”. Why don’t you even confirm first to be sure it’s true, then pray for the person in your closet.
Prov 6:16 These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: 17 A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,18 An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief,19 A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.
Like I said earlier, God totally abhors gossip tendencies. Funny enough the art of gossip has a blend of all these ingredients in proverbs 6 in it. I’ll explain what I mean… I meditated on this subject for a while because I marvelled at the rate at which people want to know what’s going on in other people’s lives and my answer was straight and simple… A very low self esteem and worth. That’s the answer. The reason people love to gossip is simply because at the very least, for that moment, they feel a bit superior and better than the person gossipped about, and the reason for that is that outside gossip, they feel less of themselves than that person. So any attempt to realise the person’s vulnerability and weakness, they scramble for a chance to air their long borne sentiments of how they’ve always known this and that about the person. Gossip sells because people need to know the value of others, at least the social value of others in order to assess themselves in the scheme of things. So if you know a super star has a bad marriage, it suddenly makes you feel superior to that person, at least momentarily, and somehow your own bad marriage also begins to look like heaven. You should never judge the reality of your life by another man’s reality.
Let a good thing happen, and see how slowly it would crawl through the corridor of the several social media platforms, but just announce the death, shame, loss or embarrassment of someone really popular or anybody at all and you will find it on every news blog in a matter of minutes. I have real time experience on this. How something happened in one University in the morning, and in less than 2 hours after, we were reading it on Aunty Linda’s blog. How come we didn’t find the news of the several giant ICT strides our students were making on the world scenes on her blog? Simple, because people won’t read it. They’d rather read what feeds their insecurities and low self esteem. If I am indeed confident about who I am in Christ, I have no business running anyone down in order to make myself feel good for a moment. It takes pride to gossip, because pride is simply self centeredness, whether low self esteem or arrogance, it’s all a variation of pride (proud look), gossip needs exaggeration and falsification to be “sweet” (lying tongue), in gossip, you talk about something you’re not even sure is true about someone else, and you might never be able to correct it (shed innocent blood), you really have to be creative with your imaginations to sell a good gossip (wicked imaginations), of course gossip is mischievous (swift to run to mischief), gossip is blatant false witnessing because in most cases you were never there at the scene of event (false witness), and finally gossip sows seeds of discord among the brethren (seed of discord). So the next time you read that passage, just remember the summary of it is simply about “gossip”, and God hates it.
Prov 11:13(BBE) He who goes about talking of others makes secrets public, but the true-hearted man keeps things covered. 2Thess 3:11For it has come to our ears that there are some among you whose behaviour is uncontrolled, who do no work at all, but are over-interested in the business of others
If you really want to help someone, you pray for the person in your closet, or share with someone with a higher authority and maturity in the faith who can handle it, not share details with other friends. One is Love, the other is Prideful and mischievous. You restore people in meekness, not in pride, else you risk being tempted by the same infirmity.
Gal 6:1(kjv) Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.
As believers, let’s stop this crazy satanic tendency. Some of you might say “but I don’t gossip, I only hear them”. No one gossips alone, you’re as guilty as the gossip. Stop leasing your ears out to trash about others, it speaks more about you than the subject of gossip. This is what God laid on my heart of share with you today, I hope it has helped someone. This has no intention to condemn you, but to enlighten and correct you, even as i am. Have a hassle free week… I love you 🙂
