Be Still And Know

James 1:26 James was deeply concerned about people who were phoney. They did religious things and made a good first impression but, in fact, their faith did nothing to affect their actions. And he was famously concerned about the abuse of the tongue. Later in this letter he has much more to say on the subject, but here he simply identifies the importance of controlling what we say. I am sure he was thinking of people who created problems by spreading gossip, speaking coarsely or being rude and offensive. He wanted such people to know that, if they thought they were truly religious, they were just fooling themselves. Their religion wasn’t worth anything. So how do we learn to control our tongues? It may well be that you would never think of sharing gossip or speaking rudely, but we all have work
to do to take greater control over what we say. However loving and wise our words might be, we could all speak more lovingly and wisely. Step one is to pray that this will happen. The psalmist prayed: “