Reading Through The New Testament - November 4th, 2016 - James 3 The Tongue

The Bible doesn’t say much about working out. There’s no manual on how many push ups should be done, how many kilometers to run in a day, or even a recommendation on calorie consumption.

However, there is a lot of talk of one muscle in your body. It lives in your mouth and rests in between your teeth. Your tongue of course. God really cares what you do with this muscle.

Why?

This muscle has the ability to change the feel of a room. With this muscle you can tear someone down in a moment— it can utterly destroy.

On the other hand, with this muscle you can build someone up. You can give someone the words that go right into their hearts and heal.

James is right to spend some time speaking about how dangerous our tongues can be. “Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect” he says. This means that the person that can tame their tongue has likely tamed their very heart. Jesus says that what we speak reveals what is in our hearts.

Notice how this current US election has mostly been about how these two candidates have used their tongues.

Locker room talk — so to speak.

Wikileaks revealing emails that spoke poorly of whomever whenever.

We’re watching supposedly the two qualified candidates to lead America and they are getting into trouble because they haven’t been able to tame their tongues. They are both paying the price.

What is said — be it online or otherwise — can and will come back to haunt us if we don’t know how to control our tongues.

Pay attention to what you say today. What’s coming from the spring of your speech? Is it fresh water? Is it sour and salty like a stagnant pond?

As our speech reflects the state of our hearts, perhaps we can change our speech to change the direction of our hearts as well.

Try this today as you read this: speak only things that encourage, build up and edify those that listen to you. At the end of the day reflect on how it fed your heart to do so.

You will come to find that your words mean everything.