Song of Solomon 4:3a Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely:

I was talking to my wife on the phone today as I finished up running errands for her in town. She ended the call as she always does. “Bye, bye Hon.” The tone of her voice dropped low, sultry and her way of making me know I am loved without saying the words.

Many times we do not pay enough attention to the tone of our voices. The tone alone can either emphasize our words or destroy their effectiveness. Fair speech is more than the right words, it is how the words are delivered.

Job 6:26 Do ye imagine to reprove words, and the speeches of one that is desperate, which are as wind?

Job understood that personal situations could affect speech. Perhaps our hearts can be in the right place but are we in a peaceful place to be in control of the words we wield? The spiritual fruit of self-control has every bit as much to do with speech as it does behavior.

James 3:2 For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body.

I am not yet perfected, but that is no excuse for careless speech.

Romans 8:2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

My favorite verse in all scriptures is Romans 8:1. I love it so much I have allowed it to overshadow verse 2 that I quote here today. The issues of legalism have always been a great big stop sign to me. It just never occurred to me that the law has a good side. Perhaps that is because I had always been on the wrong side of the law.

Laws have an inherent protective quality. Natural laws cannot be violated by anyone except their creator. Jesus showed that ability in His ministry. Man’s laws were intended to protect people from harm but were powerless to enforce anything except punishment, and is subject to abuses.

Now the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has both the ability to protect and to enforce because it is administered by the Holy Spirit and not man. This law is not subject to corruption and abuse of men. It is God breathed.

Galatians 5:22,23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

John 15:4,5 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

So then abiding in Christ is abiding in the law of the Spirit of life. The abundant life is the one that produces many fruits of the spirit.

Christ abiding is law abiding.