Daily Devotional Dives - Jesus Speaks Some More - Part 3

"Oh, bite your tongue!"    "Keep your trap shut!"   Don't you know, the "least said, the sooner mended?!"  These are sayings and exhortations we may have heard flung at ourselves or someone else or even stated ourselves at someone else.  Often said with good reason.

Read Matthew 15:15-20.

Jesus was talking to the disciples after they'd come and told him the Pharisees weren't pleased with what he had said to them earlier.  Peter then asked the meaning of the parable.  And Jesus said, 

"Are you still so dull?"

"Don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body.  But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart and these make a man 'unclean'....For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.  These are what make a man 'unclean'; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him 'unclean.'"

In the book of James, who must have been listening and remembering what Jesus had said, said...

Our tongues are unruly...

"a fire...and...no man can tame the tongue..."  (James 3:3-12)

Often what comes into our minds finds its way to our hearts.  But what makes it all so 'unclean' is when it comes out of our mouths.  

I've mentioned this before about being in a Sunday school long, long ago, a brother told us kids that God was merciful and gave us two gates to stop us from speaking out the wrong things.  He said we have lips that we do not have to open.  But in case they open, then we've got teeth and they do not have to open either.  We've got a choice to keep that tongue from wagging and causing trouble.  

The choice is ours.  

But I believe that even what we allow to come into our minds and down into our hearts needs wisdom too.  This too is a choice. 

Let's fill our minds and hearts with God and His Word so when it gets processed, it will be like fresh springs of water to refresh ourselves and others.  We can then praise and honor our Heavenly Father with sacrifices of praise, the fruit of our lips giving honor to His Name (Hebrews 13:15).


                                                           ~ERC  2017~
                                        Originally written March 1996; adapted for blog August 2017