Ecclesiastes 5:1. Keep thy foot (walk prudently) when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear (draw near to hear, rather) than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil.
All hail, my fellow believers in Jesus Christ! It’s a glorious Tuesday morning…Praise the Lord!
Yes friends, we’ve been granted another eventful day on God’s great earth! Wow! Isn’t He wonderful to us unworthy children of men? He surely is! That’s why we ought to give Him a lot of thanks and praise throughout the day.
And to do that, some of us might just need these words of encouragement from Gramps Schuller (Dr. Robert H. Schuller) from his Hour of Power Devotional. It’s titled ‘Learn to Know God.’
Please pray with me: ‘ Dear Jesus, I’ve got to know You better. Please help me! I can feel my spiritual and emotional walls crack. I can hear old chains break. I can feel my heart opening like a heavy old door whose ancient seals have just begun to break.
I can sense the footsteps of Jesus walking into my life. I am beginning to experience the joy of a soul that is being saved, a life that is being born again. Thank You, Lord! Life’s not fair, but God is good. Amen!’
Ah my people, when Jesus is walking in our lives there’s such joy in our souls, and such pep in our steps! For remember, ‘the joy of the Lord is our strength.’ (Neh. 8:10)
And to further raise the joy in our souls, the level of our faith and the pep in our steps this Tuesday morning, let’s declare our Tuesday Mantra with the utmost sincerity and belief.
As one now: ‘I’m not what I do. I’m not what I have. I’m not what people say about me. I am the beloved of God, that’s who I am. No one can take that from me. I don’t have to worry. I don’t have to hurry. I can trust my friend Jesus and share His LOVE with the world. Amen!’
Yes mih breddren, it’s certainly a wonderful God we believe in and great Friend and Saviour we have in Jesus! Nothing in this world can beat it!
We just have to remember whose we are, and behave in a fashion suitable to their ideals and principles; basically living a godly life and sharing the LOVE of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
And the awesome advice in our Bit will surely help us to do that. ‘Keep thy foot (walk prudently) when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear (draw near to hear, rather) than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil.’
Yeh friends, we’re still on that Bit because it covers such a wide area, especially where our mouths and our promises are concerned. We can either be righteous or evil with those two things. And James deals with them very nicely, obviously pointing us towards the righteous aspect.
Listen to him: ‘Wherefore my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. For the wrath of man worketh not (does not produce) the righteousness of God.’ (James 1:19-20)
And the scholars add this info to those verses. ‘1:19. This is a key verse because it expresses three topics that James develops later: hearing, verses 19-27; speaking, 3:1-12; and wrath, 4:1-12.’
‘1:20. Trials require silence and patience because talk inflames anger, and anger inflames talk. Anger also distracts from listening to God.’ So true friends, so true!
And later on in that same passage, James tells us in no uncertain terms: ‘If any man among you seem to be (thinks he is) religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain (useless).’ (James 1:26)
What indisputable truth! We can’t claim to be truly religious if we don’t know how, what and when to speak. The old adage that says ‘silence is golden,’ is very true on a lot of occasions.
We’d be better served by remaining silent than by batting our gums, for as Cousin Sol reminds us: ‘Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace (keeps silent), is counted wise (is considered wise): and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.’ (Prov.17:28)
And I pray: ‘O Lord please help me to hold my peace, to shut my lips, so that I will be considered a man of understanding, even though I’m a fool!’ (smile)
Ah friends, sometimes our mouths are our worst enemy, our tongues cost us more heartache than anything else. As James says: ‘Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter (forest) a little fire kindleth (sets on fire).
And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue (the tongues is so set) among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature (existence); and it is set on fire of hell.’ (James 3:5-6)
And the scholars explain: ‘3:6. The tongue is a system (world) of iniquity that sets on fire the whole course of life, and is even set on fire by Satan (cf.3:15).’
Yes precious people of God, the tongue is one of the smallest parts of our bodies, but it has unnatural control of the entire body. Since the beginning of time, our tongues have caused more war and strife than anything else, but we still can’t, or refuse to bridle them.
Thus our lives are oftimes turned topsy-turvy by the words that trip off of our tongues. But today, I implore us to take good care, to ask the Holy Spirit to help us keep silent and think before we talk, and then to only talk that which is: ‘For the perfecting (equipping) of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.’ (Eph.4:12)
If we successfully do that, then our lives and our world will surely become more a representation of paradise, than one of hell, as it currently is. Much LOVE!
…many of us would be better off…if we had no tongues…harsh…but true…
SCRIP-BITS 