our language

I'm going to keep blogging. I've been away for quite a while, but I think the exercise in writing (and thinking), will do me well. Plus, and please don't mistake this for arrogance, I feel I have comments to contribute. I hope you'll find these things interesting, enlightening, and challenging. God bless.

I've been struck recently, as I often am, by the sheer lack of control I exercise over my language. We're talking straight-up, breaded-and-battered James 3 here. Let's not mince words; Scripture says it more poignantly and clearly than I could: "The tongue is a small thing, but what enormous damage it can do! ...it is full of wickedness that can ruin your whole life. It can turn the entire course of your life into a blazing flame of destruction, for it is set of fire by hell itself."

I honestly think the only thing that would would have ever enabled me to write such a polarizing sentence is by quoting scripture directly. Think of how striking those comments are!

But we are so, so very lax in controlling our tongue. We are so, so very lax in monitoring what we say and how we say it.

I've been very concerned in the past about how freely we make fun of one another in jest, believing that comments made with the caveat, "It's just a joke!" don't hurt. That's a crock (I've been using that word rather frequently these days...).

We continually compromise our status as "Christ-followers" when we chose to disregard the strong, biting power of the tongue. If the pen is mightier than the sword, and the eyes are the window to the soul, then clearly, out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks, and it speaks clearly and sharply. And if we claim to be renewed and regenerate, then why do we constantly allow our mouth to speak from an overflow of the old nature?

This takes the form of biting cynicism, something I struggle with immensely. It takes the form of swearing, coarse jokes, inappropriate sarcasm, derogatory comments and dirty movie quotes.

We've been duped into believing humor and quotes are acceptable excuses for sin!

I need to concentrate very clearly and precisely on how I'm allowing every word I speak to point to Christ. What a testimony that would be!

My dad gave me a piece of advice he exemplified, "Speak just so often, and so thoroughly season your speech with wisdom, that every time you open your mouth, people take notice." Anyone who knows me knows I don't quite live up to this model, but I pray that I would continually move to maturity of speech, so that I testify to Christ's redeeming work in my life whenever I speak!