I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Saturday morning, it's the 16th of December, 2023, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

"And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell." 
James 3:6

The power of the spoken word, the power of the tongue! It has the capacity to make or to break a person. When I was fifteen and a half years old, my old schoolmaster told my mother, "It would be better to take him out of school because he won't do much more in school." Oh folks, just that word, you see, and then I thought, "Well then, I am just not going to make it." It was a lie, but it didn't matter. God redeemed me after that. 

I remember one of our early Mighty Men Conferences on the farm, Shalom, when the Holy Spirit was moving powerfully amongst the men. One of the men, a former policeman actually, a big strong man, got up on the platform, and he got very emotional. He said, "I have got my eighteen-year-old son here this weekend, and I have never told him that I believe him and I love him." I will never forget it. At that moment, a big strong eighteen-year-old came running down the aisle in front of all of us and his dad met him in the aisle. They embraced and hugged each other and that dad affirmed him. Do you know that that boy couldn't even make the second team in rugby at school? He went on to make the first team after that comment, not only that - when he left school, he became a semi-professional sportsman because his dad spoke life over him and not death. 

You and I must speak life today and not death. Remember that song, "A man saw a shepherd boy, but God saw a king?" God saw David as the greatest King of Israel, next to Jesus, but the rest of the people saw him as a shepherd boy looking after the sheep.  

Today, watch that tongue. If you haven't got anything good to say about anybody, rather don't say anything at all.

Jesus bless you and goodbye.