James 3

"Indeed, we all make many mistakes. For if we could control our tongues, we would be perfect and could also control ourselves in every other way." James 3:2

"And so blessing and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth. Surely, my brothers and sisters, this is not right! Does a spring of water bubble out with both fresh water and bitter water?" James 3:10-11

I really enjoy the book of James because it's so relevant, of course all of the Bible is but it seems as though James could be written to the church of today spot on! So many people do not allow themselves to filter what they say to the extent that they should - to the extent that we, as Christians, are instructed to. Of course we find it wrong to say curse words and extremely vulgar things, but so many of our words are overlooked because compared to "the world" they're not that bad, may I just say that if you are saying the phrase, "It's not that bad" you are probably in the wrong and simply trying to justify it. If we go around saying one thing and then the complete opposite what are we portraying? As it says, "No, you can’t draw fresh water from a salty spring."(James 3:12) We can't live on both sides of the fence, it just doesn't cut it.
The majority of what we say, is what we see and hear. Therefore if you are constantly enveloping yourself in the ways of this world by watching the wrong TV shows, listening to the wrong music, reading the wrong books, or hanging around the wrong people you are not going to be spurting off scripture you heard once on Sunday morning. So along with watching our tongues, we have to take it back a step further to the root by weeding out what is controlling our speech.

"If you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don’t cover up the truth with boasting and lying." James 3:13-14

Again, I just love it! If we aren't living honorably and making wise choices, God doesn't want us to hide it. I feel like so many people think that either God wants them to conceal their sin by lying, or that they can just pretend their sin doesn't exist. That is the furthest thing from God's heart, sometimes we forget that our God is kind and loving, He is easy to forgive and always forgets. It's pretty hard to grasp at times because the human race is so far from that, but it's true.

"But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere." James 3:17

Someone once told me that many times in life we become so focused on all of the things we think that we need to be that we mess it all up because in that we forget the foundation of those things. Wisdom is pure, peace loving, gentle, etc. but we don't have to focus on becoming all of those things, we just have to have "wisdom from above" and the rest will follow. I know that's something that I have had to learn and learn and then re-learn it all over again. We don't have to seek after those traits, we just have to seek after the heart of God.