PREVENTING FIRES OR FIGHTING THEM

”The tongue is a raging fire…” — James 3

First off, this post is for anyone who considers themselves a talker. Anyone who has the tendency to speak first and clean up later. Anyone who has an opinion and isn’t afraid to share it. Unfortunately, I have fallen into all three of those at one point or another. So, as you proceed reading this, please know that I am giving advice and counsel to all that fit that criteria and I do not see myself as exempt. I’ve not only witnessed the effects of an unstewarded tongue, I’ve been the victim, and sadly, I’ve also been the offender.

James, in chapter 3 of his gospel in the bible, gives explicit detail of the dangers of an unstewarded tongue. He goes as far as to say that the tongue is “on fire from hell itself.” We’ve all experienced it in some way. Either the burned or the burner. But, I’ve come to realize that the struggle is more than just biting your tongue and not speaking how you feel.

The Lord has shown me that there are three levels of stewardship that need to have our attention if we are going to properly live a life of preventing fires rather than fighting them. I believe that what we THINK becomes what we BELIEVE becomes what we SAY.

There is a battle over our MINDS. Satan knows good and well that if he can access and control the way you think about God and His Kingdom and His children, then he can absolutely dictate the way you live your life. But YOU (not Satan) have the final authority in regards to your thought life. We can learn from Paul, in 2 Corinthians 10:5, who said in almost warlike language that “we demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, AND WE TAKE CAPTIVE EVERY THOUGHT TO MAKE IT OBEDIENT TO CHRIST.”

There’s a battle for your mind and it’s important that we take an active stance and fight. We have the privilege of putting thoughts in a headlock and making them submit to Jesus. They will TAP OUT! If somehow a thought manages to get in, and set root, the next level of stewardship is in the heart. Remember, what you think, becomes what you believe.

There is no doubt God cares about what’s going on in our hearts. 1 Samuel 16:7 tells us that ”man looks at the outward appearance but the Lord looks at the heart.” He cares about what you believe. He cares about what thoughts have become rooted in your being and have manifested into beliefs that settle in your heart. It matters how you’ve cultivated the soil of your heart and if it is producing good fruit. Because as another passage of scripture states, “out of the heart, the mouth speaks”. What you think, becomes what you believe, becomes what you say.

If somehow, that thought, that lie, has made its way through the headlock of captivity in your mind and entered into the foundational, blueprint of your heart, the next and final level of stewardship is in the birthplace of the wildest of fires. The tongue has the ability to bring forth life OR death. If you’ve let death in as a spark, by the time it’s passed through the mind and the heart it has become a raging inferno ready to devour anyone or anything in its path.

Let’s be good stewards. Of the mind. Of the heart. And of the tongue. Because it’s easier to prevent fires than to fight them.