Did You Hear What You Just Said?

I'm guilty.  Bet you have been too.  We are talking to someone, maybe even making our case for something, and we don't hear ourselves.  If we truly listened, we may understand our mouths are saying far more than what they are saying.

James 4:17 tells us:  Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins.
John writes in 1 John 3:7:  Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. 

Here is the funny thing:  we reveal something with our mouths we are not willing to admit and don't know it.  For example, a person told someone recently that they could not attend a service the next day.  Later in the conversation, the person was asked what they were going to be doing that they couldn't come.  They said they weren't sure, they may just stay at home.  I am not being legalistic about attending a service.  What I am pointing out is that they said they "can't" come rather than they were "choosing" not to come.  Nothing prohibited them.  They just chose not to.  Nothing wrong in saying they just weren't coming.  But to say they can't?  Now we are carrying out wrong behavior.
   We do this all the time about the disciplines that are lacking in our lives.  We know the steps we need to take to exercise, govern our diets, turn off gadgets to read or converse, to lessen the level of activity to focus on the important things.  We know the good we ought to do but we choose to not do it.  It is not that we "can't" do it.  We choose not to, and the results are natural.

   So what is revealed?  At best, we are deceiving ourselves.  But in regards to all the good we know to do and aren't, I would suggest it reflects a rebellious spirit in us that refuses to give up something to submit to the good things God has for us. 

So what is your mouth revealing lately??  I'm listening more to mine.  Hope I like what I hear.