Cleaning Up Our Mouths (5)
To wrap up my posts on the tongue let me give you one final step toward cleaning up our mouths.
Step Five: Gratitude and Wonder
In Ephesians 5:3, 4 Paul tells us not to be crude and vulgar, profaning the sacred gift of sexuality. But that's not all he says; he also says that we should speak and think of these things with "thanksgiving". Over in 1 Timothy 4:1-5 he says something similar: we sanctify God's gifts of sex and food by thanking Him for them.
Here's how to keep your heart from profaning things holy and beautiful: be actively, consciously, insistently, reverently thankful for them. Think of them and then treat them as holy and precious gifts from God. This putting on of thankfulness will help you to put off profanity.
It's hard to treat with dishonor something that you are consciously thankful for as a gift from God. So spend time thanking God His name, for His church, for His Law, for His gift of sex, for all things holy and good and beautiful. Use your tongue to praise the holy and good, and you'll find your tongue reticent to speak flippantly about the same.
Nothing so mortifies sins of the tongue like the right use of the tongue. Nothing so lifts us up from the gutter of the profane like a love and celebration of the sacred.
God help us to tame our tongues by turning them loose with praise.
Step Five: Gratitude and Wonder
In Ephesians 5:3, 4 Paul tells us not to be crude and vulgar, profaning the sacred gift of sexuality. But that's not all he says; he also says that we should speak and think of these things with "thanksgiving". Over in 1 Timothy 4:1-5 he says something similar: we sanctify God's gifts of sex and food by thanking Him for them.
Here's how to keep your heart from profaning things holy and beautiful: be actively, consciously, insistently, reverently thankful for them. Think of them and then treat them as holy and precious gifts from God. This putting on of thankfulness will help you to put off profanity.
It's hard to treat with dishonor something that you are consciously thankful for as a gift from God. So spend time thanking God His name, for His church, for His Law, for His gift of sex, for all things holy and good and beautiful. Use your tongue to praise the holy and good, and you'll find your tongue reticent to speak flippantly about the same.
Nothing so mortifies sins of the tongue like the right use of the tongue. Nothing so lifts us up from the gutter of the profane like a love and celebration of the sacred.
God help us to tame our tongues by turning them loose with praise.
Labels: Sanctification, speech, tongue
posted by Tim Shorey at
6:45 AM
1 Comments:
"Putting on thankfulness"
Wonderful advice, and a good conclusion to this series on profane thinking and profane speech. I could have profited from this practical help yesterday as I spent some time at the beach. Rather than allowing my eyes to wander about, I ought to have been giving thanks.
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