What’s So Funny?

Bible Reading: Ephesians 5:4

Obscene stories, foolish talk, and coarse jokes—these are not for you. Instead, let there be thankfulness to God.   Ephesians 5:4

So have you learned any good jokes in the locker room—or at a slumber party? Do you have any you’d like to share right now—during family devotions? Maybe not.

You probably know firsthand how quickly guy-talk and girl-talk and even guy-girl talk can slide into the category of rudely crude. You’ve maybe heard some jokes that were hysterically funny—but that sizzled your ears.

Talk about it: Is it okay for the same mouth that says “I love Jesus” to also say “Did you hear the one about. . .”? Why—or why not?

Maybe you wonder what the fuss is about. Then answer this: If dirty jokes are no big deal, why don’t you run home to tell them to your mom? If you won’t share your most comic material with Mom, it’s good to understand why. Fact is, crude humor makes us think our bodies are dirty… that it’s okay to make fun of the opposite sex … and that bodies that grow up at different speeds and shapes are somehow defective.

The apostle Paul nailed down three kinds of things better left unsaid:

Obscene stories. That’s an easy one. It’s “filthy language,” like rolling in the mud by making sin into a joke.

Foolish talk. Dirty jokes are usually about things you have no clue about—often to give the idea that you do. Paul literally called it “the talk of morons.”

Coarse jokes. Those are the ones about your fabulous body parts—or your body functions—or the body parts and body functions of someone else.

As believers in a pure and holy God, “these are not for you.” Here’s another way to say that: Those words are “out of place” (NIV) and don’t meet God’s requirements.

So what’s better? Thankfulness!

What does that have to do with anything? It doesn’t mean you insert into conversations a “Praise Jesus!” where previously you would have told a foul-smelling joke. It does mean you have better things to talk about.

And that’s because you have better things inside of you. Jesus said that “The mouth speaks the things that are in the heart” (Matthew 12:34, NCV).

Are “obscene stories, foolish talk, and coarse jokes” all that you have inside you? Of course not! God is remaking you from the inside out. So let your speech show off what he’s doing in you!

TALK: How can you do a U-turn on a conversation that’s gone dirty? What are some better things to talk about?

PRAY: God, you’ve given us clean hearts. Help us to have clean mouths.

ACT: If you have some bad habits in your speech, ask a Christian friend to help you monitor your mouth and clean it up.

Two Towers of Strength

Bible Reading: Jude 1:20-24

But you, dear friends, must continue to build your lives on the foun­dation of your holy faith. And continue to pray as you are directed by the Holy Spirit.   Jude 1:20

THE GOLDEN GATE Bridge stretches across San Francisco Bay in California. This bridge, perhaps the most famous bridge in the whole world, was completed in 1937. It’s one of the longest suspension bridges in the world, stretching for 8,891 feet (or one and three-quarter miles—that’s almost thirty football fields long!).

Now, the Golden Gate Bridge spans a channel where very strong winds blow. That area has been hit by many earthquakes, some of them strong enough to topple buildings and collapse expressways. Yet the Golden Gate Bridge has withstood those earthquakes and is as strong today as when it was built.

You want to know how the Golden Gate can stand while many other structures all around it have cracked or crumbled?

Part of the secret is in the foundation. You see, the builders of the Golden Gate Bridge knew that the area was subject to earthquakes. (A really bad earthquake destroyed much of San Francisco in 1906, only thirty-one years before the bridge was built.) So they sank the two great towers of the bridge deep into two massive concrete blocks, which had been reinforced with strong steel beams. One of these great blocks, larger than a city block, weighs over 90 million pounds! With that kind of foundation, the Golden Gate Bridge can withstand even severe attacks.

The same is true of you. You may not have to go through any earthquakes, but you may have friends trying to get you to smoke or try drugs. You may sometimes be tempted to lie to your parents or teachers. You will face a lot of temptations to do wrong and may find it hard sometimes to make right choices.

That’s why you need to do what the builders of the Golden Gate Bridge did. You need to build a strong foundation for making right choices in your heart and mind. You need to sink two great “towers” of strength into your heart that will help you to make right choices even when your friends try to talk you into wrong choices. What are those two strong towers? Prayer and Bible reading.

You’ve probably heard it before, but if you pray faithfully and read your Bible carefully every day, you’ll be drilling those two towers deeper and deeper into your heart and mind. So that the next time a really big temptation comes, you’ll be ready—to stand strong.

REFLECT: Do you have trouble making right choices? Do you think spending time with God every day (through prayer and Bible reading) could help you to make right choices? Why or why not? Are you building your faith through prayer and Bible reading? Do you need help to become faithful in prayer and Bible reading?

PRAY: “God, please help me to be faithful every day in prayer and Bible reading so that I can be strong enough to make right choices.”

Bob’s Secret

Bible Reading: Psalm 44:1-8

Only by your power can we push back our enemies; only in your name can we trample our foes.   Psalm 44:5

THE MOVIE What about Bob? starred Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss in an odd comedy about a psychologist and one of his patients, a man afraid of almost everything. Bob, the patient, follows the psychologist to his vacation home. The psychologist is angry at Bob, but the doctor’s family thinks Bob is fun. In fact, they even take Bob sailing—his first time—and tie him to the mast so he won’t chicken out!

When Bob arrives back at the dock, he sees his psychiatrist and begins yelling excitedly, “I sailed! I sailed! I’m a sailor! I actually went sailing!” Later, a calmer Bob explains to the doctor’s son (who has a few fears of his own), “I just let the boat do all the work.. . . That’s my secret.”

Bob’s “secret” is actually a lot wiser than it may sound.

You see, a lot of people—people who love God and want to obey him—think it’s their job to do good things and avoid doing bad things. They imagine that making right choices requires a “grit-your-teeth” struggle against temptation and sin, a struggle in which only the strong survive.

They need to learn Bob’s “secret.” Trying to make right choices and live a godly life in your own strength is like trying to sail a boat by blowing into the sails. You don’t have the strength to do right all by yourself any more than you have enough wind in your lungs to power a sailboat. The only way you can make right choices, time after time, is not by tryingbut by trusting. After all, it’s ‘”Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty” (Zechariah 4:6, NIV) that you can live a godly life.

Your job is to pray and to stay as close to God as you can. God’s job (through his Holy Spirit) is to help you obey his commands (see Ezekiel 36:26-27). You can make right choices time after time if you let the Holy Spirit be the wind in your sails.

REFLECT: According to Psalm 44:1-3, who did all the work of conquering the Promised Land for the Israelites? According to Psalm 44:4-8, who “gives us victory”? If your “job” in making right choices is to pray, stay as close to God as you can, and trust him to help you to obey his commands, is there anything you should be doing now that you haven’t been doing? Is there anything you have been trying to do that you shouldn’t be trying to do? How can you trust God more and more every day? Can you trust God without being willing to do right? Why or why not?

PRAY: Reread Psalm 44:1-8, only this time pray the verses. Feel free to put them into your own words or to write your own personalized version of those verses in a notebook or prayer journal.