Oh Be Careful Little Mouths What You Say -pt. 3
JUSTIFYING THE FLESH.
While we find ways to justify our sins by declaring how human we are, we like to use scripture to our flesh’s advantage. The number one Scripture that has been corrupted in this matter of what we say affecting our faith is Romans 10:9. Almost every reason to why we aren’t living like Christ is defended by this verse
That if thou shalt confess with my mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
In today’s world, this is the national Christian Get-out-of-Jail-Free Card. Yet, in using this same scripture we ignore the root of its message, believing it in your heart. Even in the next verse it says For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. The mouth is only the result of the change in heart. If you believe in your HEART, your mouth will confess.
But the question is: what is truly in your heart? We claim to believe in God, but we don’t act like it. When I was a child during Christmas I would sometimes get nervous because I believed that I had to be a good boy to receive something for Christmas (and I knew I wasn’t good the entire year). Or if our parents threatened to beat us, most of us would behave better because we believed what they said.
We don’t live as if we always believe in what God tells us. And just saying we do does NOT change our faith.
Isaiah 29:13 - Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the percept(ion) of men:
Jesus brought up this matter in the book of Matthew when dealing with the scribes and Pharisees arguing about the disciples breaking tradition. It reads (15:7-9) - Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
Then telling the crowd (vs11) - Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man. Jesus explains this text to his disciples saying (vs18) - But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man.
What Jesus explains here can also be referenced to the purpose of Romans 10:9-10, that what comes out of your mouth is what is coming from your heart. There’s a saying that goes “Don’t say it, if you don’t mean it.” This is what we should be telling ourselves when dealing with Christ. Especially for those of us who have already made it known to so many people that we proclaim to be Christians. It doesn’t mean anything if it is not in our hearts.
Jesus says in Matthew 12 - Children of snakes! How can you speak good things while you are evil? What fills the heart comes out of the mouth. Good people bring out good things from their good treasure. But evil people bring out evil things from their evil treasure. I tell you that people will have to answer on Judgement day for every idle word they speak. By your words you will be either judged innocent or condemned as guilty.
Jesus takes what we do and say very seriously. The Bible tells us that there are MANY people who are false prophets, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. Even Satan himself and his servants are disguised as being righteous ministers. They are pretending to be Christians. They are going out acting like servants of Christ but their hearts are opposite. They do this because they know that we are supposed to be ambassadors/representatives of Jesus; living after His example.
We are to live like this to share his love and word in hopes to save others and bring them home to God. But if the devil and his minions are faking to be like us and then be seen as hypocrites, it brings a bad outlook on the entire religion, and takes people away. (Even now people don’t like to use the term religion, because of the corrupt structure built around it, when the word itself simply means anyone who believes in a supreme being.) So if we who are going around claiming to be Christians don’t have that in our hearts to actually live by, we are helping the enemy.
“Don’t say it, if you don’t mean it.”
The thing that we as Christians should have in our hearts is love. This is what separates us from those who are pretending. The love we are to have is so important, that He made it the two greatest commandments (to love God with all our hearts, souls, and minds, and to love others as ourselves). Everything else we are commanded to do is fueled by God-like love. As humans we know how to watch what we say to the people we love, versus the people we don’t care about. Well we should be watching what we say and how we say it to everybody, because we are to love everybody. And if we have that true love in us, we won’t be gossipping about others, we won’t be lying to each other, we won’t be hurting one another. We will be loving, caring, nurturing each other as Christ wants us to be.
Ephesians 4:29 says - Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying(building), that it may minister grace unto the hearers.
Something we also have to do is to let these walls down. I know that they’ve been built to protect us from mean things that people say. But other times, when we are dealing with people close to us, we take things that are good for our building as hurtful. We do this because we don’t think other people can tell us about our lives. We use the ‘Judge not, that ye be not judged’ text to defend ourselves. But in that same text Jesus says to get the beam out of your own eye, so that you can clearly see to get the mote out of your brother’s eye. It doesn’t say “look at yourself boo before you come talking about me” and then leave the situation alone. Jesus still wants us to help each other, just don’t condemn each other while doing it. But we have to stop taking everything someone says to us that we don’t like as condemning or judging. The truth is always going to be the truth, whether you like it, want it, welcome it or not.