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Key Bible Verse: Whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be shouted from the housetops (Luke 12:3). Bonus Reading:Matthew 12:33-37

I was in a mall recently and could hardly believe the language of 12-or 13-year-old kids. You can tell what effect your training and discipline is having on your kids by the words they use, especially when they get angry.

Vice President Dick Cheney's on-air expletive is nothing new. When George (not "W") Bush was running for president in 1988, he admitted that he'd made inappropriate remarks about Dan Rather and CBS White House correspondent Lesley Stahl after an on-the-air confrontation. Bush referred to Rather in an unprintable term and also took God's name in vain while speaking on CBS. When confronted with what he'd said, he replied, "If I'd known the microphone was on I wouldn't have taken the Lord's name in vain, and I apologize for that. I didn't know I was being taped or I wouldn't have done it." But the fact is, God's tape is always running.

Dads, I urge you, be firm with your children and never allow them to use profane or filthy language. Set the example by the kind of language you use. I've never done a scientific study, but I'm certain you'd find 98 percent of the young people who use foul language heard it first at home.

—James Merritt in Friends, Foes, and Fools

My Response: Are my kids slipping into bad language? If so, what needs to change?

Thought to Apply: His heart cannot be pure whose tongue is not clean.—source unknown

Adapted from Friends, Foes, and Fools (Broadman & Holman, 1997, 1999) by permission.

Copyright © 2005 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine. Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.

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Prayer for the Week

Take control of what I say, O Lord, and keep my lips sealed. —Psalm 141:3

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