The Rudder

EPHESIANS 4:29 Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearer.

I have found myself shocked sometimes at the amount of vulgarities that plague the speech of the present day teenagers. I have found myself even more affected when my tuition student, who proclaims that "God rawks" spouts the most unpleasant words that can possibly come out from a Christian's mouth.

It brings me back to ponder if others can identify Christ in my life through my very speech. Can others identify Christ in yours through what you speak as well?

The bible warns us sternly in James chapter 3, that our tongue is like the small rudder, which can turn large ships that are driven by fierce winds. (V4)It also speaks of our tongue being "a fire, a world of iniquity" (v6) and how it is "an unruly evil, full of deadly poison"! (v8)

As such, we need to be constantly guarding our speech as Ephesians 4:29 tells us. When Paul was passing through Ephesus in Acts chapter 19, on being filled with the Holy Spirit, the new disciples could not help but speak of God's kingdom. When Peter and John commanded a lame man to rise up and walk in the name of Christ Jesus, the Man went walking and leaping and praising God!

As Christians, have we forgotten the times we were diseased in so much sin? how were lame in our walk with Christ? how we were blind to His truths? Hasn't God healed us from all these infirmities? Why then are we not praising the Lord and making His name known every day through our speech? Instead, many of us are giving praise to the evil one through our corrupted speech.

It is important that we surrender our "rudder" fully to the Spirit daily, that the Holy Spirit might bear the Lord's testimony through what we say, in that our words might impart grace to the hearers and bear testimony of the Lord's gift of salvation.

We can never tame the tongue unless we submit it to the Lord's utility. As James said in verse 9 and 10 of chapter 3, our tongue can be used to bless our God and Father. But how can out of the mouth flow both blessings and cursing? We have to keep it in check.

Let us not defile our bodies, the temple of the living God, but bring glory unto our Father in heaven, with our small little rudder.