Ephesians 5:4
And there must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.
Sarcasm and coarse jesting may be numbered among the greatest of my struggles. I tell you this not as a cry for help, but as an honest confession and a vivid example of what it means to embrace sin so passionately. I ask that you not allow yourself to look judgmentally on my sin, but reflectively on your own.
Last weekend I regressed. Well… at first I thought it was regression. What began as a conversation with several old friends ended as a manifestation of “filthiness, silly talk, and course joking” about other friends and strangers. I now understand that the “unfitting” conversation was not so much a regression of my morals, but rather an intensifying of sinful habits still lurking because of my refusal to give them up. I am convicted as I read Ephesians 5:1-8. As a child of God, these sins should no longer be natural for me to do. Rather, I should be imitating God (5:1) and walking as a child of light (5:8). But I refuse, choosing instead to live by the flesh (Romans 8:4-7).
When I take part in ungodly conversations, I am reaching out of my Spirit filled identity and grasping the habits of my pre-Christian (fleshly) self. Ephesians 5:8 says that I was formerly in darkness (naturally talking like this), but now I am a child of light (and shouldn’t be talking like this). In fact, I should be exposing those who do talk like that to their own sinfulness (5:11). Why then, do I not give it up?
Today, I repent and ask that the Lord would continue to convict me of my sin. I am a child of God and have no right to hold these habits of my unbelieving life so tightly.