THE FRUITS OF THE TONGUE
For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body. Behold, we put bits in the horses’ mouths, that they may obey us; and we turn about their whole body…. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell (James 3:2-6).
The human tongue is a very important element of the body. From the scripture above, the tongue is seen as being the controller of the whole body just like a helm which controls a ship. The tongue therefore has many fruits. We are going to discuss the fruits of the tongue.
For you to be born again, you need to make a confession to accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior. With the heart (spirit), one believes the gospel but it does not end there. One needs to confess Jesus Christ with the mouth to complete the salvation process and this involves the tongue (Romans 10:10).
Matthew 21:21 states that “Jesus answered and said unto them, verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done”. Faith goes with works. If a child of God wants to make any positive changes in any area, it begins with confession with the mouth! You need to speak to the situation first before following up with other activities. As you speak from your spirit, your body aligns with what you are speaking and before long, you act and do what you speak. That is why we are advised to be careful about what proceeds from our mouth.
At job interviews, the fruits of the tongue come to play. One may have the best of CVs but the interview session reveals more areas of the candidates beyond what is captured on the CVs. A story is told of someone in an interview who became upset and furious with a question that was asked. The answers to the question that was asked revealed so much about the person’s character and temper and he was not picked for the job although his CV had great accomplishments. It matters so much how you train yourself, what you train yourself with and what you say and portray during an interview. Interviews more often than not, expose character!
In marriage, communication plays a very important role and this is done by the tongue- fruits of the tongue! Most often, marriages break up after communication has broken down. Married couples are admonished to talk and discuss challenges between them instead of resorting to keeping quiet over issues. In discussing challenges in marriage, the mode of communication is as vital as the content of communication.
Many wars in this world came about because at some point, there was a communication challenge. Anytime two parties begin blaming each other about something, and things are not carefully handled, it leads to mistrust and the result can be very damaging. The tongue has several fruits (good or bad) but it is up to the Christian to tame the tongue using the word of God so that the tongue assumes good roles all the time and produce good fruits.
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