And yet...

Tuesday was youth group and what Kent talked about was very good. Very good! He talked about our tongue. Well, ok not about how it moves and all the muscles but about what we say. We started off with: "

If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless."- James 1:26

And how we are instructed to keep a tight reign on our tongues. Which is very hard to do! Then in

James 3:9-10-"With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness.Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be."

This should not be and yet how often we do it. We can say mean stuff about someone and with the same mouth praise God! It sounds horrible and it is!! Then we broke up into groups and each had a verse. Mine was

2 Timothy 2: 23-25a-"Don't have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels.And the Lord's servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Those who oppose him he must gently instruct,"

And how often I do get into foolish arguments about nonsense! And that just leads up to quarrels and it says here have nothing to do with them! I thought it was interesting how this very comes right after Paul is telling us to feel the desires of youth. And when you think of it, it usually is the youth who argue more than the adults. Anyways, it was definitely conficting. We ended with

1 Timothy 4:12-"Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity."

Speech is included in that. And yes actions matter a lot, but if your actions show love and your speech doesn't well it just doesn't work that way. And none of us are perfect, we all say bad stuff! But Praise the Lord that we have a forgiving Saviour! And let's use our breath to praise and glorify Him and not to tear others down!!