1 - Introduction - Living like a real Christian Cleansing Coal week 1 | Page 5

a RIGHTEOUS God who stands way above our human understanding and might I
remind you that you don’t want to mess with Him! God’s name is forever to be treated as
holy and with a deep sense of reverence simply because of WHO that name represents and
all that God is behind His name.
I hope through today’s devotion to establish for you a foundation upon which Isaiah 58 is
built , that these thoughts and the ways specified in the passage are not our ideas, but are
the ideas that come from God Almighty Himself.
Prayer Thought: Maybe today as you pray you should begin by challenging your perspective
of who God is, and refreshing your mind of the Holiness, the Majesty, and the Awesomeness of
His nature and His incredible character. There may even be some believers who need to repent
before God at the use of God’s name in vain.

Tuesday
Mark 10 v 17 – 22
The above passage illustrates well for us the second form of speech that God forbids, and
that is the speech that comes in the form ofFLATTERY.
In the story in Mark 10 Jesus is confronted by a flattering young man who, although he was
declaring a truth, was doing it for all the wrong reasons. Jesus was not impressed by his
flattering speech and therefore called him to order.
Flattery is referred to in the dictionary as praising someonemore than he or she deserves,
generally with the motive to get something out of them. Flattery is a form of manipulation
where we tell people that they’re better than they really are in order to get something from
them that we want, or to get them to do something that we want them to do. In Proverbs 6 v
24 which speaks of the devastation of listening to a flattering tongue, we see the sadness
that this can bring to somebody’s life. To feed somebody’s ego for the sake of favour is
regarded by God to be immoral and unethical.
I realise that in today’s world that “flattery” can get you places, but responding to it can also
get you into trouble. So many immoral relationships start at this particular point. Scripture,
therefore, emphasises the importance of guarding yourself from it, and also not using it to
get what you want.
The third aspect of what would be considered forbidden speech is what the Bible refers to
as FALSE TESTIMONY (plain and simple lies).
One of the problems with lying is that it can become a bad habit, where one lie can lead to
another. For many people “white lies” have become a way of life, where the thinking is that
a half truth is not as bad as a whole lie. This philosophy has often got people into enormous