Wednesday: Wash Job 3

Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing!

Happy Salvation Wednesday, my dear brothers and sisters. Please take time to pray for the lost today and also pray that you might help our Lord Jesus collect the harvest. The harvest is ripe, the workers are few... BE A WORKER FOR JESUS TODAY.

Prayers for Blanch Stambaugh, one of our flock at The Bridges, was taken to the hospital last night losing a lot of blood. Prayers also for her husband Dale. Prayers for Vicki as a CAT scan shows something inside about the size of a peach, more tests will be done. Prayers for our granddaughter Brittany who broke her leg in basic training in the Navy and they want to put her out for this.

Wash Job 3: So you need rain? Just do what I do, wash the car. Or so it seems, you clean up the car real good and it rains. But out of all things that need washed, what really needs washed the most? May I say it just might be your mouth and tongue. Wow, how I remember my younger days, sitting on a chair eating soap. Back then my mother made soap out of lard and lye, and yes, it was called lye soap, but I got it when I lied, so I guess for me it was "Lie Soap". Oh my gosh, it tasted bad, and I mean I got my mouth washed out with it more than once or twice. You would think I would have learned, and if we cursed, wow, my mamma would make me bite down on it hard and back then "darn it" would get my mouth washed out with soap. You know today people have all those substitute curse words and we know what they are and to me they are just as bad.

James 3 talks about "Taming the Tongue", but can it really be tamed?

James 3: 10 - Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be.
11 Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? 12 My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water. (NIV)

Brothers and sisters, I don't know how someone who is really "Born Again" can curse out the one who washed them. How can we praise God and also curse Him at the same time? I cannot do this, but I have heard people do it. I was told by one person that they were a rough Christian... I asked what was a rough Christian, and they told me one that still curses and uses the Lord's name in the curse. That, folks, in my mind is not a rough Christian, that is a real sinner who needs to get on his knees before God and ask to be forgiven and then clean up their mouth. You know washing out a child's mouth with soap might help them not curse (it sure did me) or it might help them not to lie, but if we really want to clean up our mouth, we need to get deeper into The Living Word, into our Lord Jesus.

Brothers and sisters, lying and cursing are not just the only things that the mouth spills out that are wrong. Gossip, passing things on about people, bringing up their past after they have changed their lives. Oh yes, that does make one real big when they know someone who has come to the Lord and been forgiven and their friends or so-called friends say things like... I remember him when he... and then spill out their guts about the past of their friend, which even if true has been taken away by confessing to Jesus. Folks, the tongue is more powerful than the sword, it can do more damage and hurt more. Gossip is bad, folks, and if you get involved in it, you need to, well, you need to pray for forgiveness and maybe EAT SOME SOAP.

Yesterday I mentioned something about good cleaning and I was going to tell you today... oops, you got to come back again tomorrow, or Friday... and on Friday we are going to do communion online. I don't know about you, but it is special for me. So on Friday bring your bread and your cup.

Dear Father in Heaven, please Lord, tame our tongues, help us to learn something my mamma tried to teach me, if you do not have good things to say, say nothing. Lord, that is very hard to do sometimes, very hard, and I confess I can't do that without Your help. Lord be with Blanch, and Vicki and the Saylors and heal them, be with Pastor Charles and rise him up. I ask these things in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Clean your mouth, clean your tongue, and share those blessings... love ya, dan.