A New Accent

READ: EPHESIANS 5:1-2; COLOSSIANS 3:8-10

When you hear an accent different from yours, do you find yourself slipping into the new accent? For example, maybe you say y’all around your grandparents or brilliant around your British friend. Whatever it looks like, switching accents is a pretty common and often funny phenomenon.

Thinking about accents can actually help us understand a truth we find in the Bible. After Jesus died on the cross, rose from the grave, and ascended into heaven, God sent the Holy Spirit to be in Jesus’s followers. Soon after this, Acts 4:13 says that when the Jewish religious leaders interacted with two of Jesus’s disciples, Peter and John, they recognized that they “had been with Jesus.”

As we get to know Jesus better, our speech and actions begin to reflect Him. Like Peter and John, all Christians have the opportunity to spend time with Jesus, talking to Him and listening to Him any time, because we have the Holy Spirit in us. Even though we won’t see Jesus face-to-face until He returns, we can still experience the “inexpressible joy” of knowing Him through faith (1 Peter 1:8). As we pray, read His Word (both individually and with fellow Christians), and interact with the Holy Spirit as we go through our daily lives, we get to know Jesus better and better… and His love overflows from us to others.

If we trust in Jesus, He will help us grow to become more like Him—more kind, patient, loving, and forgiving—so our words and actions will show others that we know Him. And as we spend time with Jesus, we can grow to understand His love for everyone and pick up His accent in the way we talk to and treat others. • A. W. Smith

• Have you ever been encouraged by seeing a Christian friend copying Jesus’s accent? What were they doing or saying?

• Why do you think spending time with Jesus often leads to acting more like Him? (If you want to dig deeper, read John 15:1-17 and Galatians 5:22-23.)

Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God. Ephesians 5:2 (NLT)