"Control Your Words"

"Accept, I beseech thee, the freewill offering of my mouth, O LORD, and teach me the judgments." (Psalms 119:108)

  Maybe not what you want to hear; and then again, maybe you shouldn't say it! I hear myself saying what my wife always reminded me, "Do you hear the words coming out of your mouth?" If there are choices to be made, the way we use our words, or choice of words, is one that is very important. The main reason we have this vocabulary we do, is based upon what we allow into our minds; garbage in, garbage out, is what my mother always told me: "You are what you eat," she always said. Another strong indicator of why it is important to daily read your Bible. If you want good things put into your mind, then there is nothing better than the word of God! There is another issue being discussed here, besides bad language, which is talking behind people's back, or speaking judgments against others, especially false ones! James spends quite a bit of time taking about this, because it is high on the list of the things that God hates. My mom always said, "If you don't have something nice to say about someone, don't say anything." Believe it or not, but when you speak bad about someone else to someone, they automatically think that you speak bad about them to others also. It is only common sense, the more you do it, the more you find opportunities to do it more. It is a choice! Just as David proclaims above, 'Lord, I freely give you the words of my mouth!' It is something that we need to give over to the Lord like any other sin, because it is sin! What is sin, besides not hitting the mark? And what is the mark of every Christian? To love one another as we love ourselves! Sure, it is a challenge; especially when you want to make fun of someone else and the stupid things they might do. But it really comes down to your own stupidity; as in, would you like God telling others what you might do in your stupid moments? He knows everything you do, everything you say, and everything that is in your heart...

"Indeed, we all make mistakes. For if we could control our tongues, we would be perfect and could also control ourselves in every other way." (James 3:2) NLT