Is Your Speech Profitable to Others? What Your Words Reveal About Your Heart
🌿 Is Your Speech Profitable to Others?
“A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” — Luke 6:45
Every word you speak is a delivery. Someone stands at the other end of it, and they walk away carrying something. It is either a gift that strengthens them or a weight that wears them down. This teaching answers one question: is your speech profitable to the people who hear it? And because Jesus said the mouth speaks what the heart is full of, that question quietly turns around and becomes a second one. What is your heart full of?
Most believers guard their actions carefully and leave their mouths unguarded. Yet Scripture treats the tongue as the place where the heart can no longer hide. Prophet TB Joshua warned that words which do not agree with the truth of God’s word become idle, meaningless and often destructive. Let us look at why that is so, and at what God gives us to change it.
On this page
- Your words are a report on your heart
- Words carry the power to make and unmake
- Idle talk is unprofitable because the heart behind it is empty
- Elisha and his servant: fear talk versus faith talk
- Caleb and the ten spies: same land, different words
- Jesus and Joseph: speech that gives people what they need
- Your words will be evidence on the last day
- Profitable speech versus unprofitable speech
- How to make your speech profitable
- Prayer
🫀 Your Words Are a Report on Your Heart
Jesus did not describe speech as a skill to polish. He described it as an overflow. A cup that is full cannot choose what spills when it is bumped, and neither can a heart. When pressure comes, when you are tired, offended, afraid or excited, what comes out of your mouth is what was already inside.
“You brood of vipers! How can you who are evil say anything good? For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” — Matthew 12:34 (NIV)
Luke 6:45 gives the same law in its positive form. A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart. The word stored matters. A treasury is filled over time, one deposit after another. What you watch, what you rehearse in your thoughts, whom you listen to and what you meditate on are all deposits. Your speech is simply the withdrawal. If the treasury holds love, faith, kindness and the Word of God, the withdrawal blesses people. If it holds bitterness, pride and selfishness, the withdrawal wounds them, however polished the delivery sounds.
This is why changing your speech by effort alone rarely lasts. You can clip your sentences, bite back a harsh word and smile through a conversation, yet the stored thing will find another door. Prophet TB Joshua showed how exposed the inner life really is:
“With your words you constantly paint a public picture of your inner self.” — Prophet TB Joshua
Every conversation hangs a portrait of your heart on the wall. Listeners may never say it, but they see it. The anxious person leaves an atmosphere of anxiety, the proud person leaves pride, and the one who has been with God in secret carries a different air into the room. So before you ask what to say, ask what is stored.
Key insight: your speech is not only communication. It is evidence of the treasury of your heart.
⚖️ Words Carry the Power to Make and Unmake
Solomon puts the stakes in a single line:
“The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” — Proverbs 18:21 (NIV)
Notice the second half of that verse. Those who love the tongue will eat its fruit. The one who speaks also eats. Every harsh word, every careless promise, every discouraging prophecy spoken over a child, a spouse or a colleague comes back to the speaker’s own table as fruit. You are never only a sender. You are a farmer planting a field you will have to harvest from.
James uses a different picture, and it is a frightening one.
“Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark.” — James 3:5 (NIV)
A forest fire begins with something small enough to hold in one hand. A rumor, a sarcastic remark, a “just between us” comment about a brother or sister can burn through a family, a friendship or a whole church before the speaker even remembers saying it. James goes on to say that no human being can tame the tongue (James 3:8), and that praise and cursing can come out of the same mouth (James 3:10). He is not telling us to give up. He is telling us the tongue cannot be solved by willpower alone, so we must go to the One who deals with the heart. We will come back to that.
Prophet TB Joshua summarized the power of the tongue in one sentence:
“Words have the capacity to make and unmake.” — Prophet TB Joshua
Think about what that means in daily life. A sentence can open a door for someone or shut one in their face. A parent’s words can shape a child’s picture of who he is for forty years. A careless remark from a respected leader can push a struggling believer back into the world. And a word spoken in faith over a hopeless situation can begin to move it. Words are not noise. They are building material, and you are always building something with them, either up or down.
🗑️ Idle Talk Is Unprofitable Because the Heart Behind It Is Empty
Paul’s instruction to Timothy is short and sharp:
“Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly.” — 2 Timothy 2:16 (NIV)
Godless chatter is speech with no connection to God’s truth and no benefit to the one who hears it. It is not always wicked. Often it is simply empty. Gossip about people who are not in the room. Complaining that rehearses a problem without ever asking what God says about it. Jokes that get their laugh by pulling someone down. Opinions repeated because the crowd holds them. Arguments entered only to win. Hours of talk that leave everyone exactly where they started.
Pay attention to the last phrase: more and more ungodly. Idle talk does not only fail the listener, it trains the speaker. The more freely you speak without reference to God, the further your heart drifts from Him, and the further it drifts, the emptier the next conversation becomes. It is a downward spiral that feels harmless at every step. Prophet TB Joshua traced it to the root:
“Vain and idle talk is a product of a vain and idle heart; they are unprofitable and not pleasing to God Almighty.” — Prophet TB Joshua
Solomon agrees: “Sin is not ended by multiplying words, but the prudent hold their tongues” (Proverbs 10:19, NIV). A flood of words seldom runs for long before it runs into trouble. Silence is not weakness in the Kingdom of God. Sometimes it is the most profitable thing you can offer, especially when the conversation has turned toward someone’s faults.
Prophet TB Joshua also gave us the measure for deciding whether speech is idle, and it is the Word of God itself:
“When the words you speak are not in line with God’s word, it becomes idle, meaningless and oftentimes destructive.” — Prophet TB Joshua
That covers far more than casual chat. It reaches preaching, teaching, prayer and counselling. A sermon that entertains but does not agree with Scripture is idle. A prayer full of eloquence yet empty of faith is idle. Advice that comforts a person while contradicting the Word is idle, and it can be destructive. Whatever is spoken, from a pulpit or across a kitchen table, has to be weighed against the truth of God’s word.
🛡️ Elisha and His Servant: Fear Talk Versus Faith Talk
Two men stood in the same place and looked at the same enemy. One spoke fear. One spoke faith. Only one of them was profitable to the other.
“When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. ‘Oh no, my lord! What shall we do?’ the servant asked. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ the prophet answered. ‘Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.’ And Elisha prayed, ‘Open his eyes, LORD, so that he may see.’ Then the LORD opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.” — 2 Kings 6:15-17 (NIV)
The servant’s words were honest. There really was an army. But he was honest about only half the picture, and he spoke from a heart that saw only what the eyes could report. Elisha’s reply came from a heart that had been with God, and it did something fear talk never does. It gave the servant something he did not have before. Elisha did not argue. He spoke the truth, then prayed that the servant’s eyes would be opened, and the invisible became visible.
This is what profitable speech looks like. It does not deny the problem. It refuses to let the problem have the last word. When your friend, your child or your fellow believer stands looking at an army, your words can either confirm what they see or point them toward what God has already positioned around them. Elisha spoke from the unseen realm, and the servant was never the same.
Ask yourself what you usually say when pressure rises. Do you narrate the threat to everyone nearby, or do you speak what God has said about it? Your answer shows whether your heart is trusting the circumstances or the Lord. Remember also that fear spoken aloud travels. Faith spoken aloud travels too, and Elisha’s words carried a frightened man to a place where he could see the chariots of fire.
🗺️ Caleb and the Ten Spies: Same Land, Different Words
Twelve men saw the same land. The same fruit, the same cities, the same giants. Ten came back with a report that frightened a nation. Two came back with a report that should have taken one.
“Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, ‘We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.’ But the men who had gone up with him said, ‘We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.’ And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored.” — Numbers 13:30-32 (NIV)
Look at the verb: they spread. The ten did not keep their unbelief private. They broadcast it, and by nightfall the whole camp was weeping and wishing they had died in Egypt. A handful of fearful sentences cost an entire generation forty years in the wilderness. Speech that is unprofitable never stays small.
Then comes the sobering verdict from the mouth of God Himself:
“So tell them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the LORD, I will do to you the very things I heard you say.’” — Numbers 14:28 (NIV)
God heard their words and answered them. What they said in their tents, He quoted back as the sentence. This is why a believer cannot treat speech as harmless. Your words are heard in heaven, and they stand as a record of what you believe about God and about your future. Prophet TB Joshua gave a plain test for this:
“The words you speak should be in line with future you desire, not the future you fear.” — Prophet TB Joshua
Caleb spoke the future God had promised, even with the giants standing in front of him. The ten spoke the future they feared, and they received it. Which future are you speaking over your marriage, your health, your children and your work? If you have been rehearsing the fear out loud, begin today to say what God has said.
👑 Jesus and Joseph: Speech That Gives People What They Need
Paul gave the measure of profitable speech in one verse:
“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” — Ephesians 4:29 (NIV)
Three tests are packed into that verse. Is it wholesome? Does it build up? Does it meet the need of the person actually standing in front of you? Speech can be true and still fail the last test. Correct doctrine thrown at a grieving widow is not building her up according to her need. Profitable speech listens first, then says the thing that person can carry.
Look at how Jesus spoke. When He taught in Nazareth, even people who would soon try to throw Him off a cliff first paused at what they heard.
“All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips.” — Luke 4:22 (NIV)
And He described His own speech this way:
“The words I have spoken to you are full of the Spirit and life.” — John 6:63 (NIV)
Jesus never said an idle word. Every sentence carried life, which is why people were healed, corrected, comforted and set free by the sound of His voice.
Joseph shows the same principle in a man. After years in a dungeon, he stood before the most powerful ruler on earth, and he had every reason to promote himself. Pharaoh had heard he could interpret dreams.
“‘I cannot do it,’ Joseph replied to Pharaoh, ‘but God will give Pharaoh the answer he desires.’” — Genesis 41:16 (NIV)
That one sentence turned the credit toward God, gave Pharaoh hope, and positioned Joseph to serve a nation. His speech was profitable to the king, to Egypt, and to the families who would be fed in the famine. A heart shaped in a dungeon spoke with a purity that opened the palace doors. Notice that neither Jesus nor Joseph spoke simply to be heard. They spoke to give.
📜 Your Words Will Be Evidence on the Last Day
“But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.” — Matthew 12:36-37 (NIV)
Jesus does not say every wicked word. He says every empty word. The Greek word behind it, argos, carries the idea of idle, unproductive, without work. A word that did no good for anyone. We are quick to confess sins of commission and slow to notice sins of waste, yet Jesus treats empty speech as something to be accounted for.
Think of the thousands of words you speak in a single week. Messages sent, voice notes, comments under posts, conversations after church. Heaven is not listening for perfection. It is recording what your speech was for. Was it a witness for your faith, or against it? On that day your words will not need an outside prosecutor. Your own mouth will have written the testimony.
This should not frighten the believer into silence. It should sober him into purpose. If every word will be weighed, then every word is an opportunity to deposit something eternal. A kind word that kept a young believer from quitting counts. A testimony that made a skeptic start asking questions counts. A prayer spoken quietly over a stranger counts. Your speech is becoming evidence either way, so let it become evidence that speaks for you.
📊 Profitable Speech Versus Unprofitable Speech
Set side by side, the difference is clear.
| Unprofitable Speech | Profitable Speech | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it comes from | A heart stored with bitterness, pride or fear (Luke 6:45) | A heart stored with God’s Word and love (Psalm 119:11) |
| What it does to the hearer | Drains, discourages or misleads (Proverbs 18:21) | Builds up according to need (Ephesians 4:29) |
| Its relation to Scripture | Disconnected from God’s truth, or contradicts it (2 Timothy 2:16) | Agrees with the Word and carries life (John 6:63) |
| Response to pressure | Narrates the threat and spreads fear (Numbers 13:32) | Declares what God has said (2 Kings 6:16) |
| What it does to the speaker | Makes you more and more ungodly | Strengthens faith and gives God the glory (Genesis 41:16) |
| Where it ends | Accounted for as an empty word (Matthew 12:36) | Stands as evidence in your favor (Matthew 12:37) |
✅ How to Make Your Speech Profitable
Changing your speech begins below the tongue. These are the steps that work from the inside out.
Store good treasure in your heart. “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you” (Psalm 119:11, NIV). What you meditate on will eventually flow out of your mouth. Read Scripture slowly and repeatedly, and be careful about what you watch and listen to, because those are deposits too.
Ask God to deal with your lips. When Isaiah met the holiness of God, his first cry was about his mouth: “Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5, NIV). A seraph touched his lips with a live coal from the altar and said, “your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for” (Isaiah 6:7, NIV). Cleansing of the mouth came from the altar, not from effort. Pray with David: “Set a guard over my mouth, LORD; keep watch over the door of my lips” (Psalm 141:3, NIV). No one can speak good and profitable words consistently without the grace of God.
Speak to the need in front of you. Before you encourage, advise or correct, ask what this person needs today. “…only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs” (Ephesians 4:29). The right word at the right time is worth more than a hundred correct ones at the wrong time.
Be slow to speak. “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry” (James 1:19, NIV). Put every sentence through a short test before it leaves your mouth. Is it true? Is it needed? Does it build? Does it agree with God’s word? If it fails any one of them, let it die in your mouth.
Replace fear-filled words with faith-filled declarations. Do what Elisha and Caleb did. Choose three promises of God that speak to your situation, write them down, and say them aloud every day. Speak the future you desire in God, not the future you fear.
Season your conversation, and refuse to be an audience for idle talk. “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone” (Colossians 4:6, NIV). Salt preserves. Your words should preserve the dignity of the people you speak about and the people you speak to. When a conversation turns to gossip, change the subject, or quietly leave it.
Give your best words back to God. “Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips that openly profess his name” (Hebrews 13:15, NIV). Spend at least as many words on thanks, worship and testimony as you spend on problems. Make Psalm 19:14 your daily check: “May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.”
Remember:
- Your speech is a mirror of your heart.
- Idle, vain and godless talk fails the listener and trains the speaker.
- Fill your heart with God’s Word, and your words will carry His goodness.
- Your words will serve as evidence on the last day, so speak as someone who already knows it.
Child of God, make it your daily goal to speak words that reflect the goodness God has stored in you. Let your speech be a light to others and a testimony of your faith. His grace is sufficient to transform your heart and to sanctify your words.
🙏 Prayer
Oh Holy Spirit, search my heart and show me what I have stored in it. Cleanse my lips as You cleansed Isaiah’s. Forgive me for every idle word, every careless remark and every conversation that tore down what You were building. Fill my heart with Your Word, so that what flows out of my mouth gives life and meets the need of the one who hears. Set a guard over my mouth, and let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in Your sight. Help me to speak edifying words, in Jesus’ name. Amen!
Good Morning 🌄 and PROSPER ✨ today!
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References
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