Good morning,
Praise the Lord for the first day of the Autumn season. The brilliant colors of fall season are beginning to appear gradually and surely all around us. Only our Lord can display that kind of breathtaking splendor and beauty on earth. Indeed, how excellent and majestic is His name in all the earth.
The Epistle reading for last Sunday was taken from James 3. The passage focuses on the power of our tongue. The passage is pragmatic, practical, and down to earth.
There is a story of a woman in an Indian village who maliciously gossiped about another lady and her family in the village. One day she found out that she was wrong about this lady and her family and had a change of heart. She went to the village’s wise man and asked how she could take back all the wrong she had done. The wise man told her to go home and kill her chickens and pluck there feathers and put them into a bag. After this she was to go back and see the wise man again, but on her way back she was to scatter all the feathers she had plucked from the chickens.
The lady did as she was told. When she got back to the man, he told her, " now go back and pick up all the feathers that you have scattered. " The woman was astonished at such a command and said, "By now the wind has carried the feathers through out the village and beyond." The wise man then told her, "And so it is with your careless words. They are like the feathers scattered in the wind. You can not retrieve them. " With that the woman, with a broken heart because of the words she had spoken went her way, determined from that day forward to Watch her words.
Proverbs 18:21 teaches us that, "Death and life are in the power of the tongue."
Ephesians 4:29-30 states, "Let no corrupt ( unwholesome ) communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying ( building up ) that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption."
Paul addresses the fact that when we use words that tear people down rather than building them up we are grieving The Holy Spirit of God. God is not pleased with our words because they are not building up the body of Christ.
Luke 6:45 also addresses matters of the heart and words. "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh." (KJV)
Proverbs 25:11 states, "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver." In other words, a good word spoken at the right time is better than golden apples in a silver basket.
Our words, when rightly spoken, can refresh and encourage someone that is discouraged and ready to give up. Words can give new life to a dead relationship.
The Greek definition for encourage is “one who puts courage IN the heart of another” ·
We need to pray the prayer of the Psalmist. Psalm 19:14, "Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, oh Lord, my Strength, and my Redeemer."
In Christ,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tHgtzAJePo
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