Out of the Heart

Out of the Heart

What does your tongue say about you? Jesus once said, “You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.” Matthew 12:34 - So, come on, what does your heart say about you? I know mine is far from perfect.

It has often been said that the Lord does not look at our record, our past efforts, but He looks at our heart. If it is acceptable to Him then He uses us. More than that, He enables us to do whatever He is asking because our heart is right before Him.

David was called a man after God’s own heart. Can that be said of you or I? I wonder, can the Lord look at our hearts tonight and be satisfied that we, like David, are a people after God’s own heart? More likely He will say to Himself, “Well if that’s the best I have to work with then we’d better make a start as this could be a long job.” He has access of course to every word we have ever spoken – I wonder, what do our hearts say about us?

It is fairly widely accepted that the tongue can get us into all sorts of sin and trouble. Some of the ‘problems’ we cause for ourselves are these :-

Lying – The Bible says a lot about lying and a lying tongue. A fib is only a lie dressed up for children. But a lie by any name often betrays the feelings of your heart.

Gossip – I often wonder about the motives behind gossip and I really do try to avoid it almost at any cost. Sometimes I feel a person’s heart must be so jealous of bitter to indulge in much of the gossip that goes around. And I am talking about churches too

Flattery – Oh that great deceiver flattery. How flattery betrays the heart. It’s not so much the words – it is far more the facial expressions of the flatterer. I always question the motives of the heart when I hear flattery.

Idle or careless words – The root of gossip I wonder? Little throw away comments so often betray the hearts feelings of jealousy or pride or bitterness.

Bad language – One that plagued me for years, although I am so very much better than I used to be. I do still slip from time to time but rarely these days. I often wonder what the root cause of bad language is. Frustration? Tension release? Anger – certainly? So many causes and it unveils a heart not totally at one with the Lord.

The heart is ‘deceitful above all things’, or so the Bible tells us. My prayer is that the Lord takes my heart and cleans it completely as I learn to trust Him more and more during my daily walk with Him. My heart betrays me so often and your heart betrays you too. It deceives us and sometimes it deceives others. Perhaps we should all watch each other’s heart and prayerfully, lovingly, point out occasional flaws.

Please don’t point out my flaws too often though. There will be days when you won’t stop to draw breath !!