James gave a warning of the evil poison of the tongue. He described some who try to use their tongue as praise and blessing to God, then turn around to use their tongue to speak evil of one another. “With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. These things ought not to be so” (James 3:9-10). We cannot use our tongue to curse and bad-mouth others, then continue “business as usual” with our relationship with God. The Bible says that such a tongue behavior is characteristic of hypocrites. “The hypocrite with his mouth destroys his neighbor… “(Prov. 11:9).
A Bridled Tongue…
It has been said that the “tongue” is one of the most exercised muscles of our body. It has been estimated that in a typical week, the average person will speak enough words to fill a 500 page book! However, for the Christian, the use of the tongue must be a matter of careful forethought and discipline. The Bible warns that believers who do not bring restraint to their tongue and speech have been deceived — and without such control over their words, their religious acts are worthless and hypocritical. “If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless” (James 1:26). It is a deception for any of us to think that Jesus can be Lord over our life, without also becoming Lord over our tongue…
How Is Your Vision?
There are two different types of blindness one being physical and the other being spiritual. Physical blindness is easy to recognize due to the outward signs that are shown but recognizing spiritual blindness requires maturity in the Word of God to recognize what is actually taking place. There are two different confirmations that take place within spiritual sight one being verbal and the other being in the signs.
Spiritual signs normally start in a small way but over time they can magnify in ways that one can not miss. The object is to recognize the spiritual signs and learn to seek God for the direction in moving forward. For there is nothing that we can do in the physical to hold something together in the spiritual but when we learn to allow God to hold things together in the spiritual is when we will find the unity of love within the physical…
Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate…Mark 10:9
James A. Harrison
Listen Within The Whisper…
What is it like to hear the voice of God? The following story is told of the conversion of St. Augustine. One day, while he was struggling with his inability to overcome his own passions and desires, he went into his garden carrying the Letter of Paul to the Romans. While in agony of mind over his struggle, he suddenly heard a child’s voice from the neighboring garden saying, “Take up and read, take up and read.” He immediately opened Paul’s letter and read from Romans 13: 14, “clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.” This experience was the moment of his conversion. He became the greatest of the early Church Father because he heard the voice of God speaking as if through the voice of a child.
What would it be like today if God would speak to his people? How would we experience his voice coming from heaven to speak to us? Would it be a voice of thunder causing fear and dread? Or would it come to us, as with the baptism of Jesus, in a gentle voice of comfort and reassurance? Would we recognize it as the voice of God? Would anyone listen to him? Or are we too busy in our work and our play to have time to listen to God? Are we even too busy in our worship to actually take the time to listen for the voice of God to speak to us? Or do we not even really expect him to speak to us anymore?
If we are to be able to listen when God speaks to us, we will need spiritual ears. We want to learn to listen, and to develop ears that have the spiritual sensitivity to hear what God may be saying to us today. We may learn how we may have such spiritually sensitive hearing from the story of Elijah that we read from the Scriptures today.
In learning to hear God’s voice and to receive God’s message, Elijah had to learn to see things in accordance with God’s way. And that is not the way of punishment and judgement, but the way of grace and salvation. And today, too, if we truly want to hear the voice of God to guide our lives, we must begin by looking to Jesus Christ and to his example of love and service. Through his acts of apparent weakness, he showed us the real power of God. Are we listening for his voice and direction today?
Today, God may speak to us through some mighty miracle, through thunder and storm, through turbulent times and political events that shake the world. Or he may speak to us in quiet words and works of brotherly love. Such words arise when we have personally heard the voice of God speaking his salvation into our hearts and minds. Such works reflect the example of loving sacrifice shown to us by our Lord.
Sometimes we are so busy with our own concerns that we cannot hear God’s voice: the noise of our problems and our works block him out! No doubt our concerns, like Elijah’s are good ones. After all, we are concerned for the well being of God’s Church. Yet, we must learn to lay aside our own concerns, and our own expectations and to quiet our souls so that we may hear the ‘gentle whisper’ of God as he speaks to us today. We must learn to hear God in the quiet and gentle works of Christian love and mercy. We must learn to listen to the Spirit of God at work in us and around us in the quiet deeds of sacrificial love.
We have God’s promise that he will bring judgment upon those who deserve it in his own way and his own time, and not according to our demands. And we have his promise that he will preserve a faithful remnant in every time and place. Those who will not serve the gods of this world. Those who will tune their hearts and their ears to hear the gentle whispers of the Holy Spirit urging us onward in our faithful service to God in our daily work.
May God find us all eager to hear his words and commands, eager to obey and to serve him in big ways or small ways. May we all truly learn to listen to the gentle whisper of our God as it comes to us today. Amen
Do Not Covet…
In Matthew 20 we learn a valuable lesson between the landowner and the workers. Throughout the day the land owner went into town and hired others to join his workers in the field. When the time came to pay the workers for their daily wages the landowner paid the same wages to the ones that worked an hour compared to the ones that worked all day. The interesting part of this message is the order from which the landowner called the workers and that all workers received the same pay.
Within this lesson we can find a test to insure that sin does not creep in and the Lord is teaching us to not focus on anyone else but ourselves. It is very easy to allow jealousy to enter into our spirit and when we allow this it only opens the door for Satan to rob us of the blessings that we have at hand. This parable in Matthew 20 parallels the lesson with the prodigal sons brother who became jealous when his brother returned.
Rather than the workers getting angry and jealous of the new workers that were hired the Lord is teaching us to be thankful for what we have and appreciative for the new help at hand. Can you imagine the next day in the field between the old workers and the new? How do you think they felt that day when the landowner went out again and hired new workers that made the new from yesterday old? Can you see a reciprocating lesson that Jesus is teaching to you and me?
In other words we are to focus on ourselves and not covet another in thanksgiving for what we have. Can you imagine the spirit within the workers working together in unity if they all understood this message?
James A. Harrison
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