The Power of Your Tongue

“The tongue is the spiritual thermometer of the human heart.”~John MacArthur

It is always interesting to me how the Spirit brings into light specific sins in our lives that we have seemed to overlook in the past; regardless of the fact that they have always been sin, throughout our life He reveals more and more clearly the wickedness of our own hearts and our desparate need for the righteousness of Christ. I think sometimes I feel as though the mounds of sin in my life only seem to grow larger but I am soon reminded that the grace of God covers a multitude of sin and my dependence on Him to fight these sins.

Recently I have been wrestling with my own sinfulness in the area of the tongue. The Spirit has recently, in the past month, seemed to be drilling my conscience with the reality of this sin, I have read a lot of books, been going through James and heard a handful of messages from the Word in regards to the power of the tongue. James 3 has been the ever present meditation of my heart, in specific v 9-12 "With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water. " I don't think we understand the power of our tongue. I would argue that it is the most powerful thing on our body, with it we can condemn, control and confuse and on the other end we can encourage, spur on, and praise. It is how we choose to use it. Words are so powerful thing, with them we can heal and with them we can hurt, we can provide hope and we can discourage, we can build someone up and we can tear someome down.... "Yet controlling what we say from moment to moment is perhaps the most daunting challenge of Christian living. It’s the closest most of us will ever come to trying to tame a wild beast. "

If you open your eyes and your ears for a moment and look around you will realize that the tongue is most often used in negative ways. We hear gossip, slander, coarse joking and the list goes on from not only the "world" around us but even in our own Christian circles. And that is what burdens my heart and takes me back to James...how can I as a believer worship the Lord, tell of His glory, share the Gospel, and yet slander my brothers and sisters in the Lord, gossip about the latest happenings, laugh at jokes that are anything but honoring to the Lord and others, and condemn those around me?! What a hypocritical life that is! In James we also read, “But no man can tame the tongue…” (James 3:8a) That means that only through the power of God and His working in our life can we control our tongue. Afterall, “... with God all things are possible.” (Matt. 19:26b) We must pray and beg the Lord to enable us to exhibit self-control in the area of our mouth. We must think before we speak...is what we are saying going to do that person any good to hear? Is it encouraging to them and the person you are talking about? Chances are it is not and you are only sinning...this is a tough lesson to learn and I believe a battle that we will endure until we are in glory with God but may we strive for holiness in our weakness and trust in His enablement. Our tongue is powerful and even more so as we carry the message of salvation with it as well.

John MacArthur said it well, "If we want to focus our Christian life on one thing, if you and I want to get our act together, if I want to bring my whole spiritual life in control, I should work on… the tongue.”