"Our lips are our own: who calls us to account?" (Psalm 12:4 Moffatt); "Therefore I will not keep silent; I will speak out in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul" (Job 7:11).

We can stroke or strike people with words. Job and his three friends are a striking example of not being stroked when Job so needed it. Job's friends meant well; they met and went to him and even sat speechless for seven days (Job 2:1113). Later Job was to say to them in his desperation, "If only you would altogether be silent! For you, that would be wisdom" (Job 13:5.)

Our lips are not our own. We are arrogant to even think that God has nothing to do with what we say. Actions may speak louder than words, but words are action's inspiration or incitement. Kindness is the Christian's rule of thoughts and words. In speaking our mind, unless it is the mind of Christ, we may prove to be mindless as well as thoughtless.

"But I tell you that men will have to give account on the Day of Judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned" (Matthew 12:36,37).

Considering the blasphemy and filth we now hear everywhere, we can assume that most people have either never known or don't care that God holds us responsible for the consequences of our words every bit as much as our actions, perhaps even more so, for words are like the proverbial feathers that can't be found, once scattered.

Judas' "Greetings, Rabbi" (Matthew 26:49) branded him as a murderer and the worst kind of hypocrite and traitor. Judas broke trust with Jesus that fateful day with those two fateful words. Words are indeed deeds.

A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
That day.

Emily Dickinson