How's your heart health?
The mouth speaks what the heart is full of.
This phrase from Luke 6:45 popped into my mind the other day. However, rather than it being about condemnation and judgement, I felt God showing me that it was an opportunity, a key to connect with God. I felt Him saying,
“Listen to what comes out of your mouth. It will give you an idea of what is going on in your heart. If there is anything that’s not great, it’s an indicator of something going on in your heart that needs attention. You now have the opportunity to bring that part of your heart to Me for healing and restoration.”
We all need to listen to what comes out of our mouth. Is it frustration and negativity? Bitterness? Annoyance and anger? Hurt, malice, discord, even hatred? James tells us, “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing...this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring…can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.” (James 3:9-12, NIV)
If we believe we have God’s Holy Spirit in us, what comes out of our mouths should reflect this. Galatians 5 gives us a great idea of what this looks like:
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
How wonderful is our God that He gives us the opportunity for transformation, to become more like Him? However, how often do we not take this opportunity, instead resorting to our same old methods of self-protection and self-preservation?
Hebrews 3 repeatedly quotes a verse from Ps 95 - “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion…”
Why do we harden our hearts?
Again, I believe it is our self-protection. Right from our early years we experience hurt, disappointment, anger, frustration at some point. We learn that the world is not safe, that other people are not safe, and so, we find that if we want to feel safe (physically or emotionally), we have to do it for ourselves. Sometimes that is by lashing out ourselves, using our bodies, our voice or our words. Others learn it is safer to hide away. We might do a mixture of both. However we protect ourselves, it leads to walls around our hearts, or even callouses. We harden our hearts because we believe the lie that it will protect us from further pain.
Today is an opportunity. I believe that today, right now, where you are, God wants to bring healing to your heart, to take you to another level in freedom.
When we come to a place of worship, it is an interface, a place where we not only get to give God the praise and glory due to Him, but a place where He meets us. We cannot do this properly from a place where we are not prepared to be vulnerable, open and honest with Him. As scary as it can seem, when we lay all our pain, hurt and brokenness out on the table for Him to see, it is the place where healing, wholeness and freedom can come.
The invitation right now is for you to do this with God, either as I sing over you, or put on some quiet worship and spend your own time with Him. The reality is, we cannot fix ourselves. If you have stuff coming out of your mouth and heart that you know is unhelpful, unhealthy, that you know you want change in, now is the time. He can and He will – His desire is for your wholeness. After all, that’s why Jesus came, died and rose again – so you can be free.
This is a photo I took the other morning, where I saw what looked to me like a giant mouth in the sky. The words that came with it were, “The heavens declare the glory of the Lord”. Let our words, hearts and lives also reflect His glory more and more!
“The heavens declare the glory of the Lord”