Use Consistency When You Speak

Be consistent when you speak. That’s the message of James 3:9-12. This kind of question really gets under our skin doesn’t it? Are we consistent in the words we use? Do we have a way of talking with our friends and a way of talking with our parents and teachers? Do we have our church conversation and our home conversation? Do we talk about people behind their back? Do we put people down with our words? Are we consistent?

Verse 9 says Christians use their tongues to bless God their Father. Is that true of you? Are you using the tongue God gave you for the reason He gave it to you? Are you praising God when you talk? Are you taking opportunities with your mouth, with your words to praise the God who made you? James just assumes that this is what Christians do. Are you talking about what you’ve read in the Bible or what God is doing in your life? are you sharing prayer requests and taking the requests of others seriously? Does your heart overflow with a pleasing theme? JE said that during the revival at Northampton in the Great Awakening all the conversation in the town was about God’s work. Is that true for you?

The rest of verse 9 tells us the problem. With our tongues we bless God, and with it we curse those made in God’s image. Curse would include things like talking about people behind their back, spreading gossip about them, insulting them and putting them down. You all know how that feels from both sides. Is your tongue consistent or is it deceitful and hypocritical? For James it’s unthinkable that someone who is saved would curse a someone. As unthinkable as a fresh spring producing salt water, or olives growing on a fig tree, or figs on a grapevine. He says these things ought not be so, they’re not part of the natural order, Christians should be consistent in their speech. He’s not saying that if you get mad at someone and blurt something out that you regret right away you’re not saved, he’s saying that if you are always curing people around you, made in the image of God, you’re failing the speech test.

We all need help here don’t we? We all need help to speak cautiously and consistently. We all need forgiveness. We’ve all said things today, probably, that we wish we’d never said. We’d said things to family members and close friends we regret, things that we wish we could take back. Maybe this message makes you never want to speak again. Although in some ways that would solve the problem it’s not very practical! I hope that seeing the importance and danger of your words drives you to prayer. Using your tongues to ask God for help. I hope it provokes you to ask God to give you encouraging words, helpful words and uplifting words. I hope it makes you seek God’s mercy. Only Jesus Christ never uttered a careless word, but only Jesus died for all the words you wish you’d never said. There is hope only in Christ for our words to be cautious and consistent, let us go to Him, now, and often.