6 Reasons We Should Stay Away from Gossip

Hi, my dear friend, I hope you are doing great today! I hope you, are drawing near to God as He draws near to you. So all week long, I kept pondering on things I could share with you this week. I am still having a good time studying the bible with friends and I could probably easily share something from our study but the Lord kept impressing on my heart to write about Gossiping. So here I am writing to you about gossipping and I trust Him to help me communicate His mind to you in this blog post in Jesus name.

I know for sure that it irks the Lord when we spend time Gossiping about people because over and over He warns us about it all through scripture. Even more so, sometime in 2019 He spoke to me about it and told me to stop it! So my dear friend, gossip is a no no for kingdom soldiers.

Before I go ahead with God’s word and mind about Gossip, permit me to share my understanding of the action- To Gossip. To gossip means to come together with a friend or group of friends to speak about other people outside of the group. Many of these times, the discussions are usually derogatory, untrue things about the people being talked about. These days, gossip does not just stop over the phone or between friends, now gossip has spiraled into national conversations that happen on social media. Many times, I am amazed at the amount of time and energy expended by people just to talk about other people in no good light.

Great questions to ask ourselves when we are faced with the challenge to gossip or speak ill about people are:

• Does this edify me in any way?
• Does this edify the listener in any way?
• How does this conversation help my life?
• How does this conversation help the life of the one listening?
• Is this great use of my mouth and tongue?
• How does my father in heaven feel about this conversation right now? Is He smiling over me or shaking His head?

As I share with us the reasons we should desist from gossip, I would love for us to paint and analyze a scenario together. So a typical gossip scenario has sister A reach out to Brother B or Sister C or both of them and start a conversation about sister z. A typical gossip scene would have brother B and sister C chime in about the poor sister z who is oblivious to the fact that she is being talked about and slandered by people who perhaps laugh, smile, and call her friend. Now tell me, does this look or sound like anything the Lord would smile at from heaven? As we answer this question in our hearts and minds, join me as we reason this together:

Gossip is propelled by the flesh

In Galatians chapter 5, apostle Paul admonishes us to live our lives led by the Spirit of God and I put it to you that speaking about people behind them or in no good light isn’t something the Spirit of God inspires or powers. A good look at the works of the Spirit of God through a Christian, Gossip, and the like aren’t anywhere on that list. Galatians 5:19 tells the kind of fruit that the flesh bears – sexual immorality, strife, envy, dissension, division, and so on. You see envy, strife, dissension, and division are the means and end of gossip. I have never seen nor can I fathom a gossip discussion that propels anyone to do better. So why waste your precious time that you can never get back talking about people and things that have no positive effect or influence on your life?

Finally, the bible tells us that all the walks of the flesh lead to eternal death – Romans 8:6. I do not think or recommend that you should sacrifice your eternity on the altar of gossip and backbiting that last for minutes or some hours at most. Your dear life is so precious and means a lot more than gossip(s) my dear.

It is an absolute waste of God’s Blessings:

A good look at the works of creation, I see that God pointed Adam to the best use of His mouth. When God created Adam, God brought all of the animals to Adam and told him to name them. So did God bring the woman to Adam and we see that Adam gave the name Eve to the woman. Even during creation, we see how God spoke things into existence, right after He created man, He blessed man. This is a pointer to the ways we should make optimal use of our mouths – to speak great, beautiful things into existence. Another use of the mouth as seen in creation is to commune with our heavenly father. Even when we go further into the lives of our fathers and mothers of faith – Noah, Enoch, Elijah, Abraham, David, Apostle Paul, Apostle Peter, Deborah, Sarah, and so on – they all utilized their mouths to do the things that mattered. They were either blessing their children, leading God’s children into victory, cursing the oppressors of God’s children, having meaningful conversations and communing with God with their mouths. None of these great men and women did we see waste time or waste the resources God had blessed them with on frivolity. So you see my dear every time we spend time in gossip, it is a waste of all of God’s b; blessings over our lives; His blessing of time, ability to speak, blessing of our tongue and mouth.

You know something I see in the bible? God says that for every time we spent in idle conversations, we would give account of it all on the day of judgement – Matthhew 12:36. Therefore, it is my prayer that you and I remain conscious and stay away from any form of idle talk and gossip in Jesus’ name.

It is an abuse of God’s Blessings:

The Lord gave us our mouth and tongue to build up our worlds, to decree things that may be established, to destroy the works of darkness. To sum it up, the bible tells us that the power of life and death is in the tongue and they that know would eat the fruit of it therein – Proverbs 18:20-21. Therefore, when we do the opposite of these things, it is as though we do not fully understand the use of our mouths. A wise man once said, that when the the use of a thing is unknown, abuse is inevitable. Therefore, I hope that this consciousness sinks into our minds so that we may continuously avoid abuse in Jesus’ name.

A Spring Does not send forth Freshwater & bitter water at the same time(James 3:11):

According to Jesus Christ, the well of salvation from which every Christian drinks from is one that causes springs up fresh bubbling water inside of them- John 4:14. The bubbly springs of water is one that is filled of eternal life and it only makes sense that when it bubbles up, it should bubble up life not death. One who has drank of this beautiful well of salvation, one who prays, declares life to situations should have no business tearing anyone down with words. Just like apostle James said in James 3:11,” a spring does not bring forth freshwater and bitter water at the same time”. If your spring does that , then it should probably be cleaned with salt just like the bitter springs Elijah cleaned up – II Kings 2:19-21. If you recognize that you may need help with curbing your tongue – Jesus is able to help you. What you need to do is ask Him and be willing to play your part in taking action.

No Gossip or Backbiter can abide in the Presence of the Lord:

The psalmist who had an experiential knowledge of the Lord gave us great insight into ascending into the presence of God. In Psalms 15, he tells us the prerequisite to ascention. “Who can abide in the tabernacle of the Lord? Who can dwell in the Holy Hill of the Lord?” He asks. Then he goes ahead toprovide us with a response, “He who walks uprightly, works righteousness, speaks the truth in his heart and does not backbite with his tongue” For the purpose of this blog post, we see that one who backbites or gossips can not ascend into the Holy hill of the Lord, cannot speak about revival talk more of experiencing it. one who gossips cannot experience depths and intimacy with the Lord like King David. Gossip and backbiting soils your glorious garment and prevents one from ascending into the Holies of Holies, even if one is able to commune with God, there is the tendency for leakage. Once you spend time in God’s presence, go right after to gossip – all of the spiritual blessings received leaks out. It is somewhat like a basket being filled with water.

It is an exhibition of Foolishness & non-ambition:

Proverbs 10:18 sums it up for us – Whoever spreads slander is a fool. King Solomon goes ahead to tell us that in the midst of so many words, sin isn’t lacking. I am personally weary of people who cannot stop talking, I have the believe that these kind of people may get tempted to tell lies in the midst of long talks just to keep the talk going.

I mean let us pick someone who is relatively successful in the world today; pick someone who you probably draw some of inspiration from or one who motivates you to achieve good success. I am almost sure none of them spend time gossiping or backbiting because there is almost no time for such.There is sooo much to do with so little time! So in my opinion, anyone who still has time to talk about people has not really discovered their purpose in life and perhaps has no ambition in life. I am so sorry if I sound brutal but it is the truth because one who is saddled with burdens from the Lord, saddled with purpose knows that we have but a short time and should utilize every single second

They that do such shall not Inherit the kingdom of God (Galatians 5:21):

The kingdom of God is where people who live God-centred lives spend eternity. As pointed out in Galatians 5, gossip and backbiting are all the works of the flesh and no one who works according to the flesh can inherit the kingdom of God. Therefore, dear friend – I hope this is awakening for you. I understand that some people do not understand the gravity of what they do as they involve in Gossips and others just cannot help themselves.

It is my prayer that we are all awakened to these truths about Gossips, it is my prayer that we stay awakened to the truth so we don’t fall prey to the fiery dart of the enemy in Jesus name.