However, we can also recall all the times that words spoken to us in a hateful, condescending, and critical manner have made us feel as low as we could possibly go. When those kinds of negative words start cutting right through you like a knife, they can penetrate deep into the heart and soul and cause major damage to the emotions and psyche of a person. Especially if that person is not old enough or mature enough to consider the negative source from where they are coming from, and then realize that his own self-worth as a person is not based upon what other people may think about him, but only what God thinks of him.
There is a Golden rule that says that we should treat others the way we would want them to that us. If we apply this rule to this theme, we could then say that we should "speak to others the way that we would want them to speak to us." How we talk and express ourselves to other people should never be taken for granted, for our words are really powerful. They can either be used to bring life, love, edification and encouragement into a person's life or bring death, destruction, negativity, and torment.
Below are some verses of the bible where God talked about the tongue and our speech.
« "Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit." (Proverbs 18:21).
« "There is one who speaks like the piercings of a sword, but the tongue of the wise promotes health. The truthful lip shall be established forever, but a lying tongue is but for a moment." (Proverbs 12:18)
« "A wholesome tongue is a tree of life, bit perverseness in it breaks the spirit." (Proverbs 15:4)
« "Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time. Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one" (Colossians 4:5)
« "Pleasant words are like honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the bones." (Proverbs 16:24)
« Whoever guards his mouth and tongue keeps his soul from troubles." (Proverbs 21:23)
« Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips." (Psalm 141:3)
« A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. The tongue of the wise uses knowledge rightly, but the mouth of fools pours forth foolishness." (Proverbs 15:1)
Jesus tells us that we will have to give a direct account to Him for "every idle word" that we may speak in this life. He says that we will either be "justified" by the good words we have spoken in our lives, or be "condemned" by any of the bad words we may have spoken. In other words, not only does God the father want us to get our speech in order in how we relate to other people, but He is also going to be holding every single one of us personally accountable with how we have spoken and expressed ourselves to other people in this life.
TAMING YOUR TONGUE
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How serious is the matter of taming the tongue, you may ask?"
Can an 'unruly tongue' really be that sinful? Indeed, many christians right now are waging intense spiritual warfare against powerful habits such as drugs, alcohols, tobacco, list. They can't imagine an unruly tongue as being a very serious sin. I can almost hear the reaction of the believer who is engaged in a titanic struggle with some great temptation saying;
"Hey, you've got to be kidding! I'm fighting the battle of my life trying to get victory over a demonic stronghold, and you are talking about little words. How can you compare a loose tongue to the kind of battle I'm engager in?"
Dear Saint, I tell you, an untamed tongue is the world's deadliest weapon! An unsanctified loose tongue is worse than dry or alcohol abuse. It is worse than any sin of the flesh! The Bible calls the tongue a world of iniquity, a defiler of multitude taste of hell on earth!
"But the tongue no man can tame, it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison." (James 3:8)
Let me show you from God's word how dangerous and damning an unruly tongue is :-
AN UNRULY CARELESS TONGUES NEGATES EVERYTHING SPECIAL IN YOUR SPIRITUAL LIFE
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A loose tongue renders all religion absolutely worthless! It can make your spiritual activity totally useless in God's eyes. "If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, bit deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is in vain." (James 1:26)
James is speaking here of those among you that is in the Church. These aren't criminals or street people. They are part of the body of Christ who appear pious, spiritual. They are active on the work of the Lord. But their tongues are out of control! James is zeroing I on the those who seem to be holy, kind, gentle, loving yet who move about the church or their job or in their family with acid tongues, always listening to and telling gossip. They think nothing of murmuring and complaining. God says their religion, all their show of spirituality is in vain, its valueless and worthless.
You may wonder, "surely God isn't so unloving that He would discount my spirutuality simply because I said something uncharitable?"Here is what God says about uncharitable tattlers: " Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am becoming as a sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could move mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing." (1Corinthians 13:1-3)
Can you imagine dying for Jesus burned at the stake, giving your every penny to feed the poor, forsaking all in this life for the Lord, yet it is all in vain? Just because of an uncharitable untamed tongue!THE WORDS YOU SPEAK REFLECTS WHAT IS IN YOUR HEART
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"O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh" (Matthew 12:34). Whenever I said something naughty as a child, my mother washed my mouth with soap. But it wasn't my mouth that needed cleansing,it was my heart.
You see, your tongue speaks only what is in your heart. Those are the very words of our Lord Jesus Christ. And He says that loose, careless talk can come only from an unclean heart! We as believers have to take seriously what our Lord has said about taming our tongues. He has made it a heart issue, an issue of life and death! Not only does my careless tongue discount all my supposed spiritually, it also makes me face the indisputable fact that my heart is unclean, defiled. Something of hellfire is smoldering inside me!
If I hear sensual, lustful words coming out of my mouth... if I speak any gossip... If I tell a dirty joke... If I speak unkindly or jealously about someone... If I raise my voice and scream at my family... If I utter curse words... If a stream of angry words flow from my mouth... then i've got to examine my heart and ask myself: "what unclean, filthy stuff is still treasured up in me that I could talk this way? Where does this come from? There must still be something I haven't dealt with, or I wouldn't be saying such things. Careless, unruly talk is not just a flaw. It is not just a weakness or a habit we fall into occasionally. It comes from an unclean, evil heart! Says the Lord.
Jesus is saying, " if you are careless with your tongue, quarrelling, complaining, murmuring, you have a serious heart problem. Your heart is not right with God, and it goes very deep. No minister, no christian worker is exempted from this warning of the Lord. To all of us Jesus says, "check your heart, find out why you still speak unguardedly and carelessly!" "Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?" (James 3:11). Whenever I allow a morsel of gossip to come out of my lips, I mist stop and say to the Lord, "Master, there muststill be in my heart a root of jealousy or envy. How else could I take it so lightly to judge my brother or sister? It must be there is much cleansing, much Holy-Ghost dealing, left to be done in me! Oh Father, dig deep into my heart and pluck out the roots of bitterness, covetousness, prode-whatever it is!"
I recently heard a young convert as he tried to excuse the adultery of a brother in Christ. This new Christian said, "No problem, the blood of Jesus covers all of our sins. He's covered." My young friend, you've got it all wrong! The blood if Jesus covers only those sins that are truly repented of and forsaken. The blood never excuses or overlooks sin. Your brother living in adultery needs to fall before Jesus, confess his sin, and cry out for power to overcome the lure of that Delilah he is living with!
And so it is with the sin of the tongue! We dare not continue mouthing off gossip, slander, argumentative words, and then lie down at night and utter a casual prayer of confession: "Lord, if I've said anything wrong today, forgive me. Cover me with the blood. " No! God wants to get at the evil in your heart, but uncovered, and removed. God wants to root out the cause of it and to heal you of it completely. Your trouble is, you pray to be covered by the blood when you've never truly repented and gotten to the root of the evil!YOU CANNOT TAME YOUR OWN TONGUE
God must do it! "But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison." (James 3:8). How does God expect us to bridle or tame our tongue when His word says no man can do this? Jesus gives us an answer: "But Jesus beheld them, said unto them, with men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible" (Matthew 19:26). You can no more tame your tongue by yourself than a wild horse can tame itself. Wild horses are tamed by experienced trainers who "break" them. And the Holy Spirit is our trainer. Only He can break our unruly, wild tongues!
God's word is a live coal, and the Holy Ghost is its fire. Right now you have been touched by the Holy Ghost through this messahe. And God wants to pur His fire to your tongue to sanctify it. He can do it for you if you'll let His Word convict you! He is the only one who can do it.
The secret to victory over drugs, alcohol or an uncontrollable tongue is closeness to jesus, intimacy with Him, knowing Him. Drawing near to His presemce will reveal what is in your heart. Many Christians continue to gossip and slander because they never really have been close to Christ. They have never been intimate enough to see how unruly their tongue is!
Let this word go straight to your heart and piege you with it's fire. Confess, Yes its me, Lord! I'll not let this word pass me by! Purge my lips, purge my tongue. Cleanse my mouth and my heart!" Ask the Holy Ghost to put such conviction in you that each time you start to say something careless, unthinking or unkind, He will raise a flag and wave it at you. Ask Him to make you supersensitive to His voice and then obey Him when He speaks. He may stop you in the middle of a sentence with Holy Ghost conviction, and you'll say to the person you're talking to, I'm sorry, God told me to stop. Let's drop it right now. Forget it!" May the blessings come forth from your life from a pure heart and a kind tongue, tamed by prayer and by the Holy Ghost!
Finally, remember that God the father has given you a very powerful gift with the power that the father has allowed you to have residing in your own tongue. You have the power of life and death in your tongue. Use that power wisely. Use that power to bring life, love, encouragement, and edification into other people's lives.
If you do, then not only will God be highly rewarding you once you enter heaven, but you will also be receiving golden treasures down here on earth, which will be all the good personal relationships you will be able to make and establish with the other people in your life, and all of those personal relationships will then be permanent and eternal treasures shall you carry over with you into the next life.
I leave you with these Bible verses to ponder upon...
"Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man" (Matthew 15:11)
"A wholesome tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit" (Proverbs 15:4)
"For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile" (1Peter 3:10)
"Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers" (Ephesians 4:29)
"A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger" (Proverbs 15:1)
"Whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue keepeth his soul from troubles" (Proverbs 21:23)
JUST SPEAK LIFE!!!