The deadly tongue

A very warm (pun intended) hello to you all!
For the last week or so this has been reverberating in my head and heart:
“… continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose.” Phil 2:12b -13
I like how my study Bible expounds on that verse;
1.  work out your salvation- Work it out to the finish; not a reference to the attempt to earn one’s salvation           by works, but to the expression of one’s salvation in spiritual growth and development. Salvation is not                                                     merely a gift received once for all; it expresses itself in which the believer is strenuously involved - the    process of perseverance, spiritual growth and maturation.
2.  fear and trembling - Not because of doubt or anxiety; rather, the reference is to an active reverence and singleness of purpose in response to God’s grace.
Yikes!! For some days that’s a tall order - strenuous perseverance, spiritual growth and maturation?? Active reverence and singleness of purpose???? 
Check out the verse that immediately follows: v:14
“Do everything without complaining or arguing.” There are times when the only strenuous activity I’m engaged in is the wagging of my complaining tongue. “ Why doesn’t the government improve the infrastructure?… why don’t  people do things this way, why can’t things be like in Canada???”  It’s sometimes easy for me at this point to get down on myself about my maturity in Christ, or lack thereof. After all, we all know if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.
Listen to what James (3:6,8 - 12) says  about the tongue: “The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole coarse of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. But no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be.”
The Bible doesn’t merely suggest that I shouldn’t complain, it’s a direct command!! “Do everything without complaining…” Everything!!!  Man am I ever thankful for God’s grace!!! I’d be very foolish to think that I could ever attain to God’s high standards apart from His divine help through the Holy Spirit, and with “strenuous perseverance, active reverence and singleness of purpose.”
And if I douse the fire that I was about to deluge on someone before it erupts out of my mouth, I can take no credit, “for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose.” Verse 15 goes on to say: “so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life…” This side of heaven no one will ever be “blameless, pure or faultless”; this is descriptive of only one Man that walked this earth - Jesus Christ!!! But, when we ask Jesus for forgiveness of our sins, and His blood covers the offence, God the Father looks at us through His perfect Son and He sees us as “blameless, pure, faultless, children of God without fault.” Hallelujah!!
Could you please pray with us that Jesus will continue to help us “shine like stars in the universe (Africa,) as we hold out the word of life.”?
For, and because of Jesus Christ;
IRCF