Failure to Love Often Starts Here

When we gossip, backstab, share other people's news, are nosy, and use other people's life situations as talking points to blab about, we are not motivated by love. Instead, we are satiating our own appetite for drama and attention, often motivated by jealousy, resentment, lack of self confidence and pride. 

We often couch these comments with the false justification, "I'm concerned" (so therefore we discuss something about another person with everyone but the person we claim to be so concerned about!)

Or we simply can't resist being the Town Cryer, to say, "Did you hear about?" regarding the  purchases, job changes, pregnancies, and marital struggles of other people. We love appearing as the one in the know, with special inside status on information.

And then there is the simple lack of self-control and integrity when people run at the mouth and have a negative editorial comment about the way other people do everything: from the raising of children to the kind of car they drive to the way they comb their hair.  

I put all of this under the heading of gossip. It is the cacophony of self that time and time again rules out love, no matter how much the people who participate in it claim otherwise. 

This first state of affairs, the affair of our mouths, must be first overcome in order to begin to love consistently in spirit and in truth.



"For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another." Galatians 5:14-15

"Keeping away from strife is an honor for a man,
But any fool will quarrel." Proverbs 20:3

"He who goes about as a slanderer reveals secrets,
Therefore do not associate with a gossip." Proverbs 20:19

"With his mouth the godless man destroys his neighbor,
But through knowledge the righteous will be delivered." Proverbs 11:9

"He who despises his neighbor lacks sense,
But a man of understanding keeps silent.
He who goes about as a talebearer reveals secrets,
But he who is trustworthy conceals a matter." Proverbs 11:12-13

"A perverse man spreads strife, 
And a slanderer separates intimate friends." Proverbs 16:28

"A fool does not delight in understanding,
But only in revealing his own mind." Proverbs 18:2

"He who guards his mouth and his tongue,
Guards his soul from troubles." Proverbs 21:23