Out of the Heart.

If you want to know what kind of heart you have just listen to what proceeds from your mouth! (Matthew 15:18-19). The Pharisees, a religious group in Jesus day had a bunch of rules and regulations. One was eating with unclean hands. They had challenged Jesus, being upset that His disciples where breaking a religious law by not washing before they had eaten.

They had the people convinced that if they would eat without washing they would become defiled. Jesus dispelled that falsity by challenging them by the very law they were abusing. They used their rules and regulations to their advantage. They took the commands of God and twisted them. Yet on the outside the people saw them as the authority. They were the teachers and the preachers in the temple so they must be walking with God.

Well Jesus using the law exposed their hypocrisy to the people. He would show that they were a do as I say not as I do kind of leadership. Though they imposed these rules, they themselves were not following them. In fact they were the worst rule breakers! To be a leader whether a Pastor, Teacher, Military, political, etc. that does not live as they expect others to do is hypocrisy!

It reveals the true individual, what is truly on the inside of that person! Jesus would go on to say, it is not what goes in the mouth that defiles a person but what proceeds from the mouth. In other words it was their heart condition! To eat with unclean hands never hurts anyone, but the words that come from a person can cause much hurt and confusion! Or it can truly show one as being genuine.

Why? Because it was from the heart that one speaks or acts out! It is from the heart that will expose a persons true nature, who they really are. They can only hide their actions for so long before the truth, or lie, of their lives will be revealed. If you want to know where a person truly stands just watch and see if their actions measure up to their words! Then you will know their heart the true person!

This also goes for ourselves if we genuinely listen to how we speak and how we act. It will tell us who we truly are and what truly lies in our hearts. We also have expectations of others but do we really live as we expect others too? We so dislike what others do and say yet it seems alright for us? A little hypocrisy there? Basically do not set higher standards on others that you are not willing to live up too!

Jesus said in Matthew 15:18-19-But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart and they defile a man. 19- For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornication's, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. It is whatever we tend to harbor in our hearts that reveal the true self! Jesus was saying the most important thing here the thing we need to listen to most is our hearts!

If you want to know what kind of heart you have and what kind of person are just listen to what proceeds from your mouth!