Thursday, October 5, 2017

Words Matter

Thursday, October 5, 2017
How can I know all the sins lurking in my heart?  Cleanse me from these hidden faults.  Keep your servant from deliberate sins!  Don’t let them control me.  Then I will be free of guilt and innocent of great sin.  May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
Psalm 19:12-14(NLT)
Words and thoughts do matter.  It is from the heart that all the weighty matters of life issue.  What’s down in the heart eventually comes to the surface – for good or evil.  And most often, that which divides and separates us as brothers and sisters in humanity can be linked back to the “words” swirling around deep in our souls. 
For instance, in the Black Lives Matter movement the premise is that white persons, particularly those wearing blue, persecute innocent persons of color.  Such an assumption breaks down with the word innocent.  In the same way, the knee-jerk movement of Blue Lives Matter wobbles on the false assumption that the hearts and inner thoughts of white (or any) law enforcement persons are somehow innocent.
What does our Creator say about our hearts?
“The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked.  Who really knows how bad it is?  Jeremiah 17:9(NLT)         
As the Scriptures say, “No one is righteous— not even one. Romans 3:10(NLT)
The Psalmist, King David, understood himself.  As a human who was well-connected to his Creator, the shepherd boy-turned-king of Israel, understood his life was out of control.  Above all else, wealth, fame, power, and personal strength (David’s God had given him all that and more) David craved innocence.  And so he prayed not for justice or freedom…David prayed for cleansing.  In this psalm he prayed that God would so cleanse him that the words of his mouth and the very thoughts of his inner being would match up and be pleasing; he wanted the God of holiness and righteousness to give him clean words and thoughts that really mattered. 
Many people in our culture do not understand this as the most prescient need in our culture today.  Our biggest void in the battle for humans living together in peace, harmony and fairness is not more laws, regulation or stricter enforcement.  The biggest battle is the eternal, internal struggle for righteousness in the human heart.  Because once the inner person is freed from his lust, anger, greed, haughtiness, envy, pride and gluttony he is not only fit to live with…he is then fit to love.

For You Today

Your words do matter.  And they matter first and foremost when they’re uttered to God, honestly, without agenda.  And when God cleans up those words and inner thoughts, they will do the most good in loving your neighbor as yourself[2].
You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!


[1] Title Image: CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons
[2] Matthew 22:39

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