Guard your Mouth.

Much can be said about how your body is affected by what you eat.  It’s obvious that if we eat the wrong foods, they can have a dramatic effect on the body.  Too much of the wrong thing, and your body can respond in a negative manner.  Too much coffee, and you get the jitters.  Too many sweets, and fast foods, and your clothes seem to shrink.  You are what you eat!  You just can’t hide an unhealthy lifestyle.

Some things are obvious.  What is not always clearly seen is what you feed the spiritual man.  Only God sees the inward man, or what you really are.  No one can see inside of you and visualize what you really look like, or can they?  The Scribes and Pharisees rebuked Jesus one day because his disciples failed to wash their hands before eating.  The disciples broke the tradition of the elders, and the lawyers were highly offended.  That day, the lawyers received an important lesson about the importance of the spiritual man over the physical man.  In Matthew fifteen, Jesus told his detractors, that it was not what went into the body that defiled a man, but it was what came out of a man that defiled the body.  In other words, if a man wanted to live pure and holy before God, he must have a change in heart.

A physical change in a person is easy to see.  The spiritual man is more subtle and difficult for someone else to understand what is going on inside.  We can’t view the real person inside the person.  An X-ray or CT scan won’t show what another person is really like inside.  But Jesus said there are signs of what is inside a person even though we can’t see with the physical eyes.

In that same fifteenth chapter of Matthew, Jesus said that it is not what goes into the body, but what comes out of the mouth that reveals what a man is really like inside. Want to know how close a person really is to God.  Listen to the words that they speak.  Jesus said that, “out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.”  In verse eighteen, he says that what comes out of the mouth when a person speaks, reveals what is really in their heart.  “For from the overfilling of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, sexual immorality, false testimony, and slander.”  The mouth is a direct picture of the heart of man.  If you want to know what a person is really like, listen to what they say, and the type of language they use.

David says in Psalm seventeen three, that “I will guard my mouth, that I might not sin against God.”  Proverbs twenty-one says that the person, who guards his mouth, prevents a world of calamity. Whatever is in the heart, will be revealed by the words that are spoken.  Proverbs six says we are ensnared by the words of our mouth.  Over and over the Bible tells us that our words will reveal to the world what we really are.  You can’t hide behind your colors, or you Bible, or the Christian company you keep.  At some point, “your sins will find you out.”

It is amazing sometimes to just sit and listen to people as they speak.  Filthy jokes, racist slang words, off-color stories and comments about the opposite sex, flow as freely as water from a mountain spring.  James three, verse three, says that a fountain can’t send forth both sweet and bitter water.  The same mouth can’t send forth both praise to God, and cursing.  Just as fig trees can’t bring forth grapes, or grape vines bring forth olives, the man or woman of God cannot glorify God and use words that are offensive to both God and man. 

The words that we use are very important in the spiritual realm.  Our words can move spiritual mountains, or dig spiritual graves.  Jesus says in Matthew twelve, thirty-seven, that we are acquitted or condemned by our words.  What a revelation!  We are to be very careful of the words we speak.  “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” (Proverbs 18:21).  Like wise, our words can be a fountain of life, (Proverbs 10:11) or they can bring death to our testimony.

Therefore, as David said, I will “watch my ways, and keep my tongue from sin.”  We cannot be an effective witness for Jesus, and talk trash about our brothers and sisters.  We can’t be an effective tool in the hands of God, if we slam another church, motorcycle ministry, or motorcycle group. Witnessing for Jesus and revealing a heart of filth and trash, will not work. If it’s filthy rap, shut your trap.  Be on guard, be vigilant, your adversary goes about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.  Don’t be a happy meal for the devil! 

In the Wind,

Double D