The statement in James 1:26 resonates strongly: “If anyone thinks he is religious but does not control his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is of no use.”
The Power of Living a Genuine Faith | Devotional
If you claim to be religious but don’t control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion isworthless. James 1:26
I earned decent grades in most classes but was less than a scholar with foreign languages. I took three years of Spanish, yet scored 17 out of 150 points on a college proficiency test.
And if I tried to converse with a native in Tijuana today, I probably couldn’t get much further than ¿Cómo está?
I switched to French in college. The result? I can count to ten without looking in a dic- tionary. In other languages, I can . . . let’s see . . . say “I love you” in Tagalog and Japanese; I can remember a few words in Italian like spaghetti, ravioli, and lasagna; and I can hold my own in Australia, Ireland, and Kentucky, though the foreign accents trouble me.
With such a background, I sympathize with people who understandably scratch their heads when Christians convene their holy huddles and start rambling about things like redemption, agape love, the Trinity, the Rapture, and “being saved by the blood.”
One writer has said the world is bombarded with a mishmash of religious gobbledygook from people like “Theodore Theologian”—with his pointy-headed talk about glorification, justification, and sanctification—and his counterpart, “Rev. Pat Popcorn”—with his holy hype:“Praise Gawd!”“Jump for joy!”“I see those hands!”“Pass the plate!”“Amen!”
Actions speak louder than words, it is said. Perhaps that is why the apostle Peter, in writing to Christian women married to unbelievers, urged the wives to let their godliness be demonstrated by their lives, not their words: “Your godly lives will speak to them [the husbands] without any words. They will be won over by observing your pure and reverent lives” (1 Peter 3:1-2).
The apostle James was adamant that Christians control their tongues—that they be “slow to speak” and instead show their faith by good life and deeds (James 1:19).
You see, it’s much easier to sound spiritual than it is to be spiritual. That’s the problem Christ found with the Pharisees, religious leaders who talked godly but lived godlessly.
With that in mind, try an experiment: See what happens when you stop just telling people you’re a Christian and start showing them. It can be a radical way of living.