June 17, 2015 … Let My Words Be Few

Daily Berry Patch Devotions in 2015 - Day 168

Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK  … Please take the time to take in a video of Phillips, Craig, and Dean, singing their song Let My Words Be Few … declaring that our words should show our love for Jesus.

Highlight Passage Proverbs 12: 18 [NIV] … 
18 The tongue of the wise brings healing. 
… Oh, … to have a healing rather than a hurtful tongue
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Highlight Context - Proverbs 10: 18-21, 12: 17-19 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
… Oh, … how our words can be hurtful or healing … which are they today?
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Reference Passage #1 - Proverbs 16: 24-28 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK ...
… Our hope for eternity … our faith … His grace

Reference Passage #2 - Ephesians 4: 29 [NKJV] … 
29 Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers. 
… If we can’t say something is God’s grace to others … SHUT UP!!!

Reference Passage #3 - 1st Thessalonians 5: 9-11 [NKJV] … 
9 For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 10 who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him. … 11 Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing. 
 … Our words should edify and heal … in the Name of Jesus.

Reference Passage #4 - James 3: 6-8 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK ...
… The tongue … small muscle, powerful effect …

My Journal for Today: Today’s Our Daily Bread author, Dave Branon, writes of the power of one very small muscle in the body: … What is the strongest muscle in the human body? Some say it’s the tongue, but it’s hard to determine which muscle is the most powerful because muscles don’t work alone. … But we do know that the tongue is strong. For a small muscle, it can do a lot of damage. 

James, the brother of Jesus, the pragmatist leader of the early church, wrote few, but very powerful, words in James, Chapter 3, exhorting his fellow Christians to be very careful in the use of that very small muscle in the body, the tongue; … a muscle which can be very healing or very hurtful. The Apostle Paul, to two church groups in Asia-Minor in the 1st century, exhorted Christians (see Eph. 4: 29 and 1st Thess. 5:11) - and that’s you and me, too. - to do what Phillips, Craig, and Dean sing in their linked song above … “Let [our] words be few.”

 J.G. Pilkington, in the 19th century, was credited to have written that “we have two eyes and one tongue, … that we may see twice as much as we say.” But he went on to lament, “… but unhappily men generally act as if the reverse were true.” And that’s what Solomon was hitting at when we wrote so many of his Proverbs to exhort mankind to let this powerful little organ which so much power in the body be an agent of healing rather than one of hurtfulness.

 Let’s take in the the attached photo, the song linked above, and today’s highlight and reference passages, meditating deeply on how we - each of us - uses our tongue; and then let’s dedicate ourselves - AT LEAST TODAY - to make our tongues healing agents of love, speaking from Christ-led hearts and verbally sharing the love and grace of God with others.

My Prayer Today: Oh Lord, … I pray that I, and any here with me today, speak Your love, and peace, and healing words to all whom we connect today. Amen

Blogger Note: Everyday during this year, my daily devotional blogs are influenced by the reading and study of the online devotional blog entitled Our Daily Bread, distributed online via email by RBC Ministries. If you GO TO THIS LINK on the date of my blog, you can read/study the ODB blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.