The subject is the tongue. My tongue, to be more precise.

“Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?” (James 3:11).

Anytime I choose to speak ill of another, I’m contaminating any “sweet water” I may have spoken before.

Maybe even after as well!

That means it is nigh to impossible to compensate for bad speech by spewing out a bunch of good speech.

Adding a bunch of sweet water to bitter water really doesn’t redeem the bitter water. It still tastes bad.

So . . . don’t indulge bad speech, Mark.

I want to have greater faith in Jesus. I want to be a more mature believer. I want to increase in faithfulness to Him.

How do I get there?

First of all, I must keep Jesus as the focus and purpose of my life:

“Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2).

Then there’s this in today’s chapter:

“Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?” (James 2:22).

That is so neat!

How I live and what I do affect the development and maturity of my faith.

(Let me remember the downside to that — fleshly living affects my faith just as much as godly living.)