You ever have one of those days
when you open your mouth and you can’t believe what you just said? If only you had a 7-second delay like radio broadcasters and could squash it before anybody heard and you had to figure out how to get your foot out of your mouth. Today’s thought was spawned by Democratic Vice-Presidential Candidate Sen. Kamala Harris. In a campaign stop in Arizona, before she could censor her thought, here’s what came out: “In a Harris administration with Joe Biden as president…” Oops.
Why does that happen when we think we’re so clever at hiding our deception, our motives, our true thoughts? God has designed into man a truth serum-like filter that, in unguarded moments, allows the truth to escape. Listen to a couple descriptions from the Book of Truth. “The heart of the righteous ponders how to answer, but the mouth of the wicked pours out evil things.” (Prov. 15:28) “For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart.” (Matt. 12:34) “The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good, and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil, for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart.” (Luke 6:45) And even if you think you’ve gotten away with hiding the truth, one more. “Would not God find this out? For He knows the secrets of the heart.” (Ps. 44:21)
Remember when your mom told you,
“If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything?” That’s only the outward solution. It doesn’t do anything to clean up the source. Notice the verses are statements of fact. They are not what ifs or conditioned on circumstances. If you want good stuff to come out, you gotta have good stuff inside to start with. It is what it is.
James gives a command to deal with this issue, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” (Jas. 4:8) Cleansing hands was a ritual performed by Old Testament priests before approaching God. The term “sinners” is only used of unbelievers. Purify deals with the inner thoughts, motives, and desires of the heart. So we know we’re supposed to do this. The question is how?
Paul has the answer
in his letter to the Philippians, “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.” (Phil. 4:8) Thinking of this reminds me of a Louis Armstrong song, “What a Wonderful World.” Wouldn’t it be great to believe everything spoken by politicians, attorneys, preachers? In the 1997 movie starring Jim Carrey, “Liar Liar,” Carrey couldn’t lie for 24 hours because of his son’s birthday wish. We all laughed but it was sad recognizing just how many times and how easy it was for him to lie.
So what’s our takeaway today? Are politicians going to stop lying? Will the Pope convert to Protestantism? No. Our ONLY hope is for sinners to turn to Jesus Christ and be changed from the inside, be given a new heart. “Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezek. 36:26) If you need a new heart CLICK HERE and go through the list of 9 “steps to salvation” to understand your predicament and God’s solution. If you need more information, you can contact us through this website.