Saturday September 15th, 2018 James 3:1-12
From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. (verse 10)
When I was in confirmation class, our pastor encouraged us to read our Bible every day. That was a long time ago, but I’m still following his advice. For the past month, I’ve been making my way through Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.
As I began to work on today’s devotion, I recognized a similarity between James’ letter and those two wisdom books from the Old Testament. All three contain practical advice about living a godly life. Not all of the advice is exactly the same.
For example, while James goes on at considerable length about using careless, cruel and excessive speech, the writer of Ecclesiastes wastes few words reminding his readers that there is “a time to keep silence, and a time to speak.” (Ecclesiastes 3:7) How true that is. It makes me think that when we are confessing the things we have done and the things that we have left undone, we would do well to consider the words we shouldn’t have said as well as the words we ought to have said.
O Lord, grant us the wisdom to use our tongues to speak words of encouragement, truth and love. Amen. — CKA
Contributed by Said and Unsaid
When I was in confirmation class, our pastor encouraged us to read our Bible every day. That was a long time ago, but I'm still following his advice. For the past month, I've been making my way through Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.
As I began to work on today's devotion, I recognized a similarity between James' letter and those two wisdom books from the Old Testament. All three contain practical advice about living a godly life. Not all of the advice is exactly the same.
For example, while James goes on at considerable length about using careless, cruel and excessive speech, the writer of Ecclesiastes wastes few words reminding his readers that there is "a time to keep silence, and a time to speak." (Ecclesiastes 3:7) How true that is. It makes me think that when we are confessing the things we have done and the things that we have left undone, we would do well to consider the words we shouldn't have said as well as the words we ought to have said.
