Merry Fourteenth Day of Christmas—Delivering God’s Gifts, Part 3

You don’t have to be in an official position to deliver God’s gifts. God has given every one of us a powerful means of doing that—through our speech. Scripture identifies at least two ways we can use our communications to deliver God’s gifts every day.

Provide encouragement with kind, positive, words.

Love is one of God’s predominate gifts. John 13:34, Galatians 5:22, 1 John 4:7, 16. Brief, pleasant, greetings and small talk with folks you bump into during course of your day communicates storge and philia love. That delivers God’s gift of love. Here are some verses on that:

Proverbs 12:25

Anxiety in a man's heart weighs it down, but a good word makes it glad

Proverbs 16:24

Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones

Proverbs 31:26

She opens her mouth in wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue

Ecclesiastes 10:12

Words from the mouth of a wise man are gracious

1 Thessalonians 5:11

Encourage one another and build each other up.

Communicate in ways that diffuse tense/awkward situations

Peace is another of God’s gifts. Matthew 5:9, John 14:27, Galatians 5:22.  All of us encounter tense or awkward situations on a semi-regular basis.  Responding to them in ways that at least partially defuses them delivers God’s gift of peace. Here are some verses:

Proverbs 12:18

The tongue of the wise brings healing.

Proverbs 15:1

A gentle answer turns away wrath

Sirach 18:16-17

Does not the dew give relief from the scorching heat?  So a word is better than a gift. ¹⁷Indeed, does not a word surpass a good gift?  Both are to be found in a gracious person.