"We all stumble"

James 3:2 "We all stumble, in many ways."  I've heard it said, there are no perfect Christians, only the perfect Christ.  So as I write this, I first and foremost want to clarify that I stumble - all the time - and in many ways.  Taming my tongue is one of these ways that I, just like everyone, can stumble and get myself into trouble.  Verse 6 calls the tongue "a fire".  Fire is something you cannot control, or reverse the damage it does.  But we need to be vigilant in our duty to reduce the damage our words can do.

Verses 13-18 look at two kinds of wisdom.  There is wisdom from heaven and there is also wisdom that is "earthly, unspiritual, of the devil".  My study notes in my Bible give a list of these two when regarding speech.  I want to remember this, so when I hear something said or written by another person - I can discern the true source and consider how or if I will respond.
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When our speech is motivated by              
Satan

It is full of
Bitter envy
Selfish ambition
Earthly concerns and desires
Unspiritual thoughts and ideas
Disorder
Evil

When our speech is motivated by
God and his wisdom

It is full of
Mercy
Love for others
Peace
Consideration for others
Submission
Sincerity, impartiality
Righteousness*
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* I'm not talking about being Self-Righteous.  Remember, righteousness is "correct by divine declaration" (1 John 1:9)  When someone is righteous in their speech, they speak as one who is seen by God through the cleansing blood of Jesus.

Satan uses the tongue to divide us from each other...to push us away from gathering as one group under Christ.  Breaking up relationships, and making us act like fools.  Wisdom from God leads to peace and goodness, restored relationships, and forgiveness.

Practice What You Preach

I am really excited to start reading James.  I think there's a lot of people I know, including myself, who will find the timing of these readings to be quite perfect.
Today, verse 26 stood out to me "If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless."  I don't want to jump ahead too much, because Chapter 3 will dig deeper into this.  But I wanted to write about it because far too often we can listen to God's Word but fail to do what it says.  Do we let what we learn truly change our thoughts and most importantly our actions?  Do we seek God's wisdom when we face trials?

I looked up the word "tongue" in my concordance.  It's defined as "part of the mouth enabling speech; language; special language given to Christians by the Holy Spirit".  There are 27 verses in the Bible that reference this word.  Seems interesting that it's given so much attention there, but how often do we think about our own tongue (unless you get a pizza burn, then you think about it all the time for like three whole days)?  Here are a couple bits of wisdom about tongues....

"When words are many, sin is not absent,
but he who holds his tongue is wise."
(Proverbs 10:19)

"Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and truth."
(1 John 3:18)

God's commandment is that we love each other just as He loved us.  (John 13:34)  We all need to check our actions...because love is an action, not a warm fuzzy feeling.  If the Holy Spirit has given a special language to Christians, then that language is based fully on Love.  A Love we can only know if we really KNOW God.  So we must check our tongue, because what we say is also an action that will result in a reaction...and as we're told in Romans 3:23 "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,".  When reading James 1:26, it is a good kick in the butt that no matter how awesome we think we are...it's all worthless if we fail to control the special language given to us by the Holy Spirit.