Dear One,

It sounds like this might be a pattern for you in certain situations. We all have flesh issues to work on, but when we are saved, we have the Holy Spirit to help us overcome our flesh. Before I got saved, whenever I got stressed, I would reach for comfort from a bottle and not a soda bottle! Flesh is flesh and we have to take control of it.

We always must go into the living word of God to find the answers. Apostle Paul tells us in Galatians 2:20, I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

Paul says again in Colossians 3:3, For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Paul cannot mean physical death because we are still alive. He means dying to the world and self. Let Christ arise and live with us and in us… What a miracle! It takes our choosing to do this. But dead people have no rights, thoughts, or expressions. They are dead! We need to understand we are alive unto Christ, meaning that our rights, thoughts and expressions are to come from Him.

Our minds must be renewed by the Word of God. Romans 12:1,2 tells us not to be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of our minds. This means we have to read and do the Word. It does not matter if we are young or old in the Lord. This is a continual process this side of heaven. Ordained or not, obviously you need to be in your Word more. It’s sad that when a Christian, especially a minister, speaks profanity, others hear. What a horrible witness….

The power to overcome and stay dead to self is also found in the marvelous gift of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit was first given by the resurrected Jesus to believers at Pentecost (the first Church). The Spirit came giving His gift of “tongues” to the believer. Tongues is the supernatural gift of speaking in another language without its having been learned (see Acts 2 and 4).

If you do not have this gift, you need it, and if you do have this gift, you need to use it. Allow that wonderful language to flow through you. It’s the gift of speaking to God the right and perfect things at the right and perfect time. Tongues will control your tongue! Every believer in Christ needs to study about this first and only gift given at Pentecost to be used as a tool for every situation and circumstance. You will go from Victim to Victor over your mouth!