Controlling Your Tongue 11/18/2014

Good Morning,

The coffee is brewing and soon will be filling my cup with Door County Apple Cobbler. It is cold, cold, cold outside this morning. My warm wool coat and my wool hat accompanies me today.

James 3 New King James Version (NKJV)

The Untamable Tongue

3 My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment. ² For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body. ³ Indeed, we put bits in horses’ mouths that they may obey us, and we turn their whole body. ⁴ Look also at ships: although they are so large and are driven by fierce winds, they are turned by a very small rudder wherever the pilot desires. ⁵ Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things.

See how great a forest a little fire kindles! ⁶ And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell. ⁷ For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and creature of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by mankind. ⁸ But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. ⁹ With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God. ¹⁰ Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so. ¹¹ Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening? ¹² Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Thus no spring yields both salt water and fresh.

Can you believe some of the things that come out of our mouths? We can drive cars, train dogs, fly airplanes, and bake cakes, but to control our tongues seems impossible. Our tongues can actually start wars that never end.

Controlling the tongue starts with prayer, and ends with prayer, layered with being in God's Word. This solution keeps us in sharp contact with the Holy Spirit who will remind us that we are headed into trouble before we speak, during our speech, and after we mess up. Remember as with all temptation, God provides a way out.

1 Corinthians 10:13 No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

Our little tongue, can be controlled, we just need to get BIG HELP.

God bless,
Marty