James 3:9-12

NIV: With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.

The Message: With our tongues we bless God our Father; with the same tongues we curse the very men and women he made in his image. Curses and blessings out of the same mouth! My friends, this can't go on. A spring doesn't gush fresh water one day and brackish the next, does it? Apple trees don't bear strawberries, do they? Raspberry bushes don't bear apples, do they? You're not going to dip into a polluted mud hole and get a cup of clear, cool water, are you?

This is so true. Just listen to the things you say yourself, or what others are saying. People you know and love, acquaintances, voices passing in the street. One minute you can hear someone cursing using God's name, and the next, they are saying the sweetest things.

It's a contradiction. How can we use our tongues to praise God, to give him the worship, and then in practically the next breathe use our tongues have a blazing argument when the most awful things can be said? And what about those people who swear every other word? Or the ones who use the name of Christ as an expletive to show how they are feeling, or even just as a swear word they have been so used to using they don't even think about what they are saying, don't realise they are using the name of the Son of God as a profanity.

How can it be right that good and bad come from the same tool, the same tongue? As James says (in the Message), how can you get apples from a raspberry bush, or strawberries from an apple tree? It just doesn't happen (unless, of course, you do some fancy genetic engineering…….)? Or what about trying to get clear cool water to drink from a puddle or mud hole? It just isn't going to happen.

What we say is a reflection of the inner person, our core beliefs and our being. Sooner or later , the things we say will give away what we really think and believe. What is in our hearts will come out sooner or later through the things we say, our actions and our deeds.

We need to control our tongues, to let the Spirit of God infill us so we say, do and think those things that are edifying to God, things that uplift and strengthen, not destroy and tear down, to encourage and support, comfort, not denigrate, deride and demolish. That doesn't mean we become robots, automatically doing anything God says, all identical clones doing, saying, thinking the same things. We have each been given free will. The love of God allows each one of us the choice. We can choose to listen to His voice, to obey His commands, do His will, or we can choose to go our own way, putting ourselves first, others last, living for no one but ourselves or we can even choose to do a little bit of both.

The choice is ours, it always has been and always will be because God would not have it any other way. His love is so great, so amazing, so wonderful, so freeing, that even knowing all that man is capable of, all the evil, the sin, the depravity, He still chooses to give us free will. To have the choice to follow Him or not. To receive His Son as our Lord and Saviour or not. To live our lives as He would have us live them and receive the rewards of an eternity in heaven, or not. The choice is ours and always will be.

So what is your choice? Is your tongue going to praise God today or blaspheme His name? Will you be choosing to accept God's will for your life or continuing on your own path, in your own way, regardless of what God (if you even believe in him) has to say?