Devotional: Tongue Cleaner

James 3:8 But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.

I was decluttering the bathroom junk drawer and came across two tongue cleaners that the dentist had given us. I put them in the "to keep" sack and didn't really think another thing of them. I went to bed and during the night while I was sleeping, God gave me this devotional. Strange how God works.

A tongue cleaner is a plastic implement that has a handle and has a thin rounded piece of plastic at the bottom with another rounded piece of plastic inside the half circle created by the first. They have nobbies on them. You put this near the back of your tongue as far as you can stand, and drag it forward along your tongue down the middle, then on each side. It scrapes all the debris off your tongue. It's really not a pretty sight.

We can clean our tongues physically with the tongue cleaner, but as we see from the verse above, it is full of deadly poison that can't be cleaned off with a tongue cleaner. That's not a pretty sight either.

There is another part of our body that needs to be cleaned before our tongue can be cleaned up. Luke 6:45 tells us, " A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh." Our hearts need to be cleaned up because what is in our hearts will eventually come rolling off our tongues if we are not very careful.

There are those who are able to hold back quite well from revealing what is in their hearts, but this is no different than the Pharisees to whom Jesus said, "Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness." (Luke 11:39 )

In Proverbs we are told that there are those who think they can make their own hearts clean. "Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?" (Proverbs 20:9). The answer to this question is that no one can make their own heart clean from sin. All the good works in the world and religious service to church can not acquit a person of their sin and make their heart clean before God. Isaiah 64:6 tells us, "we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags". When we try to make our hearts pure from sin by offering righteous, good works to God in exchange for His forgiveness, it's as if we are trying to pay for our sin and buy God's forgiveness by giving Him dirty rags. How repugnant!

The only way we can obtain forgiveness for our sin and have our hearts clean before God is through the shed blood and work of Jesus Christ on the cross for us. He offered the perfect payment on our behalf to God. Scripture says, " In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; (Ephesians 1:7) In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:" (Colossians 1:14)

Our only hope to have a clean tongue is to have a clean heart. We must fall on our knees and pray like David did: "Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me." (Psalm 51:10)