OUR FATHER WHOM WE SHOULD PRAISE WITH A PURE HEART
The book of James chapter 3 verses 9 -10 says this;
With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness.
Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be.
The apostle James addresses the nature of speech among the people of God.
He juxtaposes the use of the tongue to praise the Lord and Father and then, with the same tongue, to curse human beings who were created to be like our Lord and Father.
It would be like praising a person when facing them and then turning to that person's reflection in a mirror and cursing the reflection.
James notes the paradoxic capabilities of the tongue that gives it the ability to cross boundaries of propriety and even contradict reality itself.
The cousel given by the Apostle Paul on this subject is in the letter to the Collosians in chapter 4 verse 6 which says;
Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.
In speaking with people, the probability of spreading injury and chaos if we speak with an unbridled tongue is ever present.
If our conversations are full of grace (which means that we are sincerely well-meaning towards those we speak to and that we are generous in how we interprete their words to us) and if we season our discussions with salt to steer our conversations towards righteousness, we can be assured that our answers will be profitable and we can avoid the pitfalls of carelessly spoken words.
Amen.
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