The Assassination Game

Did you know there is a game called "Assassination"? Evidently players attempt to make their way through a maze to kill celebrities. Doesn't it seem odd that we have made murder entertaining? While none of us would dare really kill someone, we seem to get an adrenalin rush in pretending to do so. Psychologists and others in the mental health profession believe we live in a culture with a rapidly deteriorating respect for life. I believe this is true. I believe it starts with a disrespect for others in general.
It seems we have become a sitcom society wherein sarcasm and insults are weapons of choice. We have no qualms about assassinating someone's character. We feel no guilt when we destroy another's self esteem. In fact, we often find it humorous. I am guilty of this also. Our skewed sense of humor has led to a damaged and wounded respect for others.
In Matthew, on the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says that words do matter. He says we cannot murder our brother, neither can we destroy him with our tongues. The Apostle Paul in Ephesians tells us we should put a censor on our words and only speak what is edifying and needed. The wisest man who ever lived, in the book of Proverbs tells us that words can destroy a city. Words matter!!
We call it venting, we call it sharing our concerns, we call it therapy, we call it humor. No matter what we call it, it is really assassination. We are murdering and killing others with our words. We talk about our husband's faults and the mistakes our children make. We tell friends how horrible our inlaws are and how badly they treat us. We tell our co-workers how tyrannical our boss is. And if that isn't enough, we make jokes at the expense of others. We do it all the time. And it may be that others are truly doing bad things, making stupid mistakes, behaving ugly towards us. That may in fact be true. However, God does not hold us accountable for what others do to us, but rather how we respond to them. Did you get that? On the day of judgement, we are not judged by what others do to us, we are however, judged by what we do to them. It does not matter what atrocities we suffer at their hands. It does matter what evil deeds we perpetrate with our tongues.
I don't know why this is such a difficult concept for us. The Amish seemed to have grasped it In the recent school shooting, I was so impressed that not one Amish person said ugly things about the man who had murdered their innocents. In fact, several of them even went to the killer's family to offer comfort to them. They seemed to understand and respect human life. Even in their grief, they did not verbally or physically attack. They used no sarcasm, no gossip, no threats. They refused to harm the assassin, his family or his character. That is an amazing example to the rest of us.
We cannot be children of God and deliberatelty misuse our words. We cannot be representatives of the Kingdom and use our tongues to destroy others, to damage their character, to harm their self esteem. We cannot be examples to the lost and let our words be evil and out of control. Jesus would never do that . . . and neither should we.
The assassination game, it is not really a game is it? Games are supposed to be fun. Fun is when noone gets hurt. It is time for us to be more Christlike. There should be no assassins in the church. This is not a game.

Neva
Eph. 4:29
"Let no unwholesome word come out of your mouth but only what is profitable for building one another up according to their needs."