Corrupt communication! That’s what the Apostle Paul calls the trash talk that spews from our mouths on a daily basis, whether it be verbally, on the internet or with our thumbs on our smart phones! Paul, on the contrary, exhorts us this way, “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth but (instead) that which is good for the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers”. (Eph 4:29 KJV)

Our words should encourage and build up rather than tear down! I was driving my special needs school student transport van yesterday, and I passed a church sign which read “Be a fountain, not a drain”! I actually laughed out loud! Not in derision for sure, but that message just hit a chord with me!

Let me take a right turn and move our conversation in a different way with a question. Do you include God or Jesus in your daily verbal communication? Or on the other hand, do you stay “incognito” or “under cover” as a Christian by not ever mentioning the Savior or our Heavenly Father in your speaking with others? Our communication with others can let them know of our faith in Christ in a very natural way. Sometimes as a result, our words can open a door of fellowship with a fellow believer or even be a doorway of faith to a searching person who may step through to find more out about our Savior.

Back to my van run yesterday. I picked up the aide who was assigned to help the special needs student who we were transporting, and within a minute or so she mentioned in passing that she was “thankful to the Lord” for something. Of course that reached my spiritual antenna very quickly and within minutes we were having fellowship around our Savior! Just with a few words the door was opened to share “edifying words of grace to one another” as the Apostle Paul encouraged us to do!

My uncle distributes mints to business establishments as a fund raiser for the Lions Club. One day he told me that he was in a local bar (yes a bar! :)) to refill the mint container and that he had given a “witness” while there. Now to my mind “giving a witness” was presenting the plan of salvation, the Romans Road or Four Spiritual Laws! But when I questioned him he indicated it was none of those but was the fact that he brought up God’s name in a positive way. He simply planted a spiritual seed, if you will, for the hearers in that establishment to consider.

He was doing what the writer of Psalms said to do, which I came across in my quite time this morning in Psalm 44:8 where he said, “In God we boast all the day long, And praise Your name forever.” My uncle “boasted in God” and who knows what those “edifying” words may have accomplished in eternity? Only God knows!

So let’s “Be a Fountain, not a Drain” in our communication today and may our words point others to the “Fountain of Life” our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

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