The tongue!

I'm going to another group tonight at an unnamed church... I figure, if I like it enough, I'll probably name drop in my next blog AND I will continue going to supplement anything Compass will have in the fall because afterall it IS on a Friday. :) Tuesdays are still up in the air, so I have no idea if I wil be able to be a part of women's bible study. This church tonight is a Bible believing and preaching church. As we were hanging up last night, the person who invited me said, "Oh, you will want to bring your Bible, we use it. We're not one of those feel good churches." I laughed and said, "Isn't that what we own Bibles for, to use them?" (Pastor Mike is finally rubbing off on me after 8 years of being under his teaching... I'm a little slow in catching on sometimes! haha) I might also add that though it's not specifically a singles group, it's a young adult group (25-35).

(A note about Tuesdays: I could very well "sneak in" to the "Newport Beach" meetings aside from the 2nd Tuesdays, but for me to do that, they would have to have a calendar of who will be speaking. Though I got a lot out of the psychologist (who is a Christian by the way - I discovered that when I met with him individually... both in November and April before I quit my job) who led most of the meetings, he's repeating stuff.)

This group is going through the book of James, I do believe they are in Chapter 3. So I had to pull James 3 up ths morning. Verse 6 struck me... "6The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell." This verse also reminds me of Matthew 15:17-18 because the tongue only reflects what is in the heart. In Matthew 15, the Pharisees are questioning Jesus about why his disciples do not wash their hands before eating and about how they're breaking the laws. His response was, "17"Don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man 'unclean.'"

If we could learn to take captive all of our thoughts and only think of things that are a blessing to God... I think we (as Christians) might start getting along better with each other and with nonChristians.

Just my thoughts.