We ALL have Foot-in-Mouth Disease!!

According to James, no person can tame the tongue. We have to admit that so often our tongues get us in trouble. We think, after it's too late, "I shouldn't have said that!!"

So, for us, our trying is futile!!! But I think we all need to come to that point of realizing how corrupt we are. And really, the tongue is not what is the problem. As Jesus said, it is out of the abundance of the heart that our mouths speak. (See Matt 12:33-37) So we need to get to the heart of the matter.

Isaiah, the prophet, realized this.

In the year that King Uzziah died, he had an awesome visititation of the Lord. The glory was more than he could handle, and in the light of God's awesome presence, he saw his own wretchedness.

He said:
"Woe is me, for I am undone!
Because I am a man of unclean lips,
And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips;
For my eyes have seen the King,
The LORD of hosts" (Isaiah 6:5)

And Paul, the mighty apostle, came to the same realization:

"For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.

"I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

"O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?"

And what does James say?

"And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell." (James 3:6)

It sure seems a hopeless state for us. How will we ever please God? Is there any way out?

YESSS!!! AMEN!!! JESUS IS THE WAY!!

And the way UP is DOWN!!

James goes on to say in chapter 4, that God resists the proud, but He gives grace to the humble.

"Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up." (4:7-10)

And check out what the Lord did with Isaiah... (Isa 6:6-7)

And look what happened at Pentecost... (Acts 2:1-4)

Do we need a different sort of fire in our tongues??