What is it about words? Words that we speak to others? Words that go through our mind throughout the day? Are they uplifting or are they demeaning? Are they going to inspire someone to conquer the world or will it cause them to crawl into hole? We spend most of the day talking to ourselves, sorting out conversations that we have had or conversations that we would like to have. We make plans for dinner, what we are doing this weekend and possibly the vacation that we want to have in the future.
Sometimes we go down roads that we shouldn’t in our head am I good enough? Does my wife really love me? Am I truly saved? Am I raising my kids right? There are plenty more rabbit holes that our minds go down throughout the day and day after day. Every once in awhile, we believe that God actually made us in his image and that we can do anything because of his Grace and his creative works in us. We are constantly pushing our selves down one road or another.
James 3:3-6 ESV states-
If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. 4 Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. 5 So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things.
How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire!6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life,[a]and set on fire by hell.
I love that James points out such small things that have a gigantic impacts on what they control. Bits in a horses mouth, a rudder to control a boat and a tiny spark that starts a fire. If we take these three items and apply them to the words that we use, not only to those around us but to our selves we will witness the Holy Spirit working in those around us.
First a Bit, a bit is put into a horses mouth to direct where the rider wants them to go. For us in today terms lets look at the bit as something that helps us with hold words, think of the rider on the horse pulling back on the reins and causing the bit to pull back in the mouth. It is stopping the natural movement of the horse. The bit in our context helps us discern when we speak or not to speak.
James 1:19-20 states….
Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.
The rudder, a small but effective part of a boat, it controls a massive vessel. The rudder directs the tone of what we are saying. Is it going to sound up lifting or negative. If we control how words come out of our mouth we are more likely to change other areas of our life as well.
Proverbs 18:20-21 states:
20 From the fruit of their mouth a person’s stomach is filled;
with the harvest of their lips they are satisfied.
21 The tongue has the power of life and death,
and those who love it will eat its fruit.
The Spark, so small but so mighty. We have the power to destroy in an epic proportion or we have the ability to change someone’s life and the world just by the words that we say. Will you be the one that will bring someone to Christ by the words you speak? Or will you be the one that pushes someone away from Christ? Are the words that you are telling yourself bringing you up or are they making you spiral downward?
Proverbs 15:4-
The soothing tongue is a tree of life,
but a perverse tongue crushes the spirit.
James 3:9-12
9 With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. 10 Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. 11 Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? 12 My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.
Now what do we do with this… We build, we build a foundation on what Jesus has done for us. We build on the fact that Jesus gives us so much grace and mercy that we owe it to him to listen to his guiding words. We owe it to him to watch what we say, like the bit in a horses mouth, we learn when to speak and when to listen, and just as the rudder directs ships we need to watch how we speak to those around us. Last but not least the smallest but the mightiest, the spark, are our words going to spread like wild fire for good? Or for bad?
Jesus is our example, His words created the world we live in, His words changed the world in epic proportions. His words give us life, guidance, protection a future to look to.
Anchored Men 
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