Text: Pro 18 vs 20 – 21
A man’s stomach shall be satisfied from the fruit of his mouth; From the produce of his lips he shall be filled. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, And those who love it will eat its fruit.
One of the greatest tools for living, gifted to Man by God is the tongue. Its greatness not only lies in the physical sense of taste it gives, but in the great power of speech with which it empowers us.
Proverbs 18:21 describes the Tongue as having the Power of both life and Death. However it is up to us to decide how we wield it.
Making the tongue a tool for life means using it in Faith to speak positive, healing and encouraging words into our lives and the lives of those around us especially in trying times. But whenever we begin to confess negative things, then we are applying our tongues as a tool for death.
There are very subtle situations in life especially as Christians when we loosely apply our tongues to death. One of such cases is in the area of Jokes. We often forget ourselves in such moments, caught up in the way of the World allowing our tongues to wallow in “coarse jokes” which is warned against in the Scriptures – Eph 5:4. The other area is in “Gossips” which for some of us we just find ourselves doing it without any prior intention.
It is very important for us to know that an enormous price awaits us for every undisciplined use of the Tongue. Similarly James 4:11 advises us of taming our tongues towards negative indulgences and rather use them to glorifying God.
We are therefore encouraged to begin using our tongues for life speaking Faith – fruitful, healing, comforting and prophetic words into our lives and others so that we can be rewarded according to our speech.
Shalom.