Think Before You Speak

Think Before You Speak “Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips.” Psalm 141:3 King David knew the importance of his words, and that they came from the heart, as indicated in the scripture above. This was his plea asking God to keep him from speaking, desiring or doing what was evil. The words that we speak come from our hearts, and Satan knows that if our hearts are unclean and not pure, that the words that come from our mouths will not be clean and pure, and can hurt and harm others. How many times have we spoken words that have hurt others, simply because we have not thought about what we are saying? This is a common occurrence in many of our conversations with friends, business associates and even family. We say things without thinking, which damage and hurt others. Thinking before we speak can be a great way to control our tongues, and also let us evaluate what is in our hearts. It is difficult to always think about what we say before we say it, but a little thought before we speak could prevent many of these instances. Since the tongue is so difficult to control, anyone who controls it perfectly gains control of himself in all other areas of life as well. The source of the tongue’s evil is the devil, and we must guard ourselves against letting the devil gain control of our hearts and our tongues. When we have the proper attitude about our fellow man and love them as we love ourselves, as Jesus commanded us to do, we will be well on our way to begin controlling our hearts. God tells us to keep our thoughts on the good things that are pure, noble, excellent, lovely and trustworthy and think about these things. When we keep our minds on God we can control our tongues. James 3:9 “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men” My Daily Devotional Volume III February 22 Robert William Brock, Jr.