Pas­tor Julien Cyrus

Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips! (Psalm 141:3)

When God placed the tongue with­in a com­pound guard­ed by 32 sharp teeth, it was not be­cause of out­side threats, but the threat from with­in. For such a small thing, the tongue’s pow­er and in­flu­ence seem un­nat­u­ral­ly out of pro­por­tion.

A tiny spark burns down a mas­sive for­est, and a small rud­der steers a huge ship. Sim­i­lar­ly, an unchecked tongue caus­es cat­a­stroph­ic de­struc­tion.

While it is ul­ti­mate­ly re­spon­si­ble for fram­ing and ar­tic­u­lat­ing words, the tongue is, how­ev­er, not the cre­ator of the con­tent it con­veys; it is on­ly the broad­cast­er.

Je­sus says that the source of our words is our hearts. A good tree brings forth good fruit, and a cor­rupt tree brings forth cor­rupt fruit. He says that the fruit sim­ply re­veals what type of tree it is. Je­sus warns that on judge­ment day, we will have to ac­count for every care­less word that we speak, point­ing out that our words will be used to jus­ti­fy or con­demn us (Matthew 12:33-37).

The as­sign­ment of man­ag­ing our tongues, there­fore, be­gins with an in­spec­tion of our hearts. Je­re­mi­ah 17:10 says that the Lord search­es the heart, and ex­am­ines se­cret mo­tives, to re­ward every man ac­cord­ing to his ways, and ac­cord­ing to the fruit of his deeds.

Since our hearts’ con­di­tion re­flects in­puts from the en­vi­ron­ment that gain en­try through our sen­so­ry re­cep­tors, we must take steps to neu­tralise every neg­a­tive in­flu­ence that cre­ates the evil thoughts that cor­rupt our out­put.

Com­mit­ting our hearts un­to the Lord be­gins with re­pen­tance. Af­ter falling in­to sin, the psalmist David prayed: “Cre­ate in me a clean heart, O God; and re­new a right spir­it with­in me” (Psalm 51:10). God is will­ing to give us di­vine guid­ance when we trust in him with all our hearts and ac­knowl­edge him in all our ways (Proverbs 3:6-7).

We have the pow­er to fil­ter what en­ters in­to our hearts. What we al­low on earth is al­lowed in heav­en, and what we pro­hib­it on earth is pro­hib­it­ed in heav­en (Matthew 16:19). On­ly things that are true, hon­est, just, pure, and love­ly; things that are of good re­port, vir­tu­ous, and praise­wor­thy should find a rest­ing place in­side us (Philip­pi­ans 4:8 ).

Words go fur­ther and deep­er than we think since death and life are in the pow­er of the tongue. Our ut­ter­ances must nev­er be harm­ful and un­con­trolled as they can ef­fec­tive­ly be a balm or a sword that heals or breaks, builds or de­stroys.

In a world that is filled with dis­cour­ag­ing news, how the na­tion longs to hear life-giv­ing words that are sweet to the soul and health to the body! Je­sus un­der­stood the im­por­tance of good news when he com­mand­ed his dis­ci­ples: “Go in­to all the world and preach the gospel to every crea­ture” (Mark 16:15).

Let us com­mu­ni­cate ef­fec­tive­ly to cre­ate what is nec­es­sary for ed­i­fi­ca­tion, that it may bring en­cour­age­ment to those who hear them (Eph­esians 4:29). T&T, Je­sus loves you!