Thursday, September 3 – Cry out for understanding that murmuring, grumbling, gossip, and backbiting come from a heart out of fellowship with God. Ask God to forgive you for any words which have harmed others and grieved His Holy Spirit. Beg God to make you aware of the problems of destructive speech and to help you bring our tongue under the control of the Holy Spirit.

“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. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water” (James 3:9-12, NIV).

Friday, September 4 – Petition the Lord to help us see with our hearts that slander is to defame or destroy those God loves with our mouths, and it places us in opposition to God and His purposes. Ask God to bring His silencing work into our lives and churches. 

“Moreover, he has slandered your servant to my lord the king; but my lord the king is like the angel of God, therefore do what is good in your sight” (2 Sam. 19:27, NASB).

Saturday, September 5 – Entreat the Lord to teach us that speaking against one another and slandering is the antithesis of what God commands and expects from those who are to love, support, and protect one another. Ask Him to discipline us until our speech meets the parameters of His holy Word.

“Do not speak against one another, brethren. He who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge of it” (James 4:11, NASB).

Sunday, September 6 – Seek understanding that a whole church can be set on fire by one spark from an uncontrolled tongue. Ask God to help us see our speech sins from His perspective. Seek forgiveness for how our verbal sins have often hurt the work and influence of Christ through us.

“And the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell:” (James 3:6, NASB).

Monday, September 7 – Beseech the Lord to help us understand that our words reveal the spirit that rules us. Ask God to revive and change our hearts that our tongues would be transformed.

“ . . . How can you speak good things when you are evil (wicked)? For out of the fullness (the overflow, the superabundance) of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matt. 12:34, AMP).

Tuesday, September 8 – Implore God to teach us that His self-revelation in revival is tied to our ordering our conversations correctly. Beg God to teach us our speech sins hinder revival. Ask God to purify our hearts.

“Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me: and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I show the salvation of God” (Psalm 50:23, KJV).

Wednesday, September 9 - Plead with God to grant us a revelation of Him that would silence us and cause us to repent of our verbal sins.

“Then I said, ‘Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips . . . ” (Isa. 6:5, NASB).