Control Your Tongue

Scripture:

James 1:26 "If you claim to be religious but don't control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless".

Observation:

James tells us that our claims and our tongues should match or we are fooling ourselves and our religion has no value. Jesus said that "out of your belly would flow rivers of living water", but many of us have stale, judgmental, bitter waters flowing out. James would say that our religion is worthless. Jesus also said that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. What is on the inside will come out!

Application:

We need to watch what we say because many times we demonstrate our religion to be worthless by the things we say. God gave us the Holy Spirit to help us bridle our tongues and live lives that are exemplary. He wants His people to live holy and blameless lives, yet we continue to struggle, especially with our mouths. We need to bite the tongue and refrain it from saying whatever we want. I have a saying, "we need to tell the truth, but we don't need to tell everything that is true".

Prayer:

Father work on my tongue. Help me get better control of it, that it may be used to build Your Kingdom and not to hurt others. Let Your words flow out of my mouth and not my feelings. Let my speech be seasoned with salt and bring grace to the hearers.

Your Son,
Jeff