RO 10:21{RO 10:32{The days are past forever when we said, "Our lips are our own." Now we know that they are not our own. And yet how many of my readers often have the miserable consciousness that they have "spoken unadvisedly with their lips!" How many pray, "Keep the door of my lips," when the very last thing they think of expecting is that they will be kept! They deliberately make up their minds that hasty words, or foolish words, or exaggerated words, according to their respective temptations, must and will slip out of that door, and that it can't be helped. The extent of the real meaning of their prayer was merely that not quite so many might slip out. As their faith went no farther, the answer went no farther, and so the door was not kept. Do let us look the matter straight in the face. Either we have committed our lips to our Lord, or we have not. This question must be settled first. If not, oh, do not let another hour pass! Take them to Jesus, and ask Him to take them. But when you have committed them to Him, it comes to this—is He able or is He not able to keep that which you have committed to Him? If He is not able, of course you may as well give up at once, for your own experience has abundantly proved that you are not able, so there is no help for you. But if He is able—nay, thank God there is no if on this side!—say, rather, as He is able, where was this inevitable necessity of perpetual failure? You have been fancying yourself virtually doomed and fated to it, and therefore you have gone on in it, while all the time His arm was not shortened that it could not save, but you have been limiting the Holy One of Israel. Honestly, now, have you trusted Him to keep your lips this day? Trust necessarily implies expectation that what we have intrusted will be kept. If you have not expected Him to keep, you have not trusted. You may have tried and tried very hard, but you have not trusted, and therefore you have not been kept and your lips have been the snare of your soul (Prov. 18:77A fool's mouth is his destruction, and his lips are the snare of his soul. (Proverbs 18:7)).
Read to him. Connie! Read of the One
Who loves him most, yes more than you
Read of that love, so great, so true,
Love everlasting, yet ever new;
For who can tell but his heart may be won!
Read to him, Connie. For it may be
That your Sunday book, like a silver bar
Of steady light from a guiding star,
May gleam in memory. clear and far,
Across the waves of a wintry sea.