LiveDifferent Challenge (33): Inside Out
I must say that I would take a rebuke from the Lord over a rebuke from a person any day of the week. God is kind, so loving, so gentle! He is everything that I am not. This past weekend, the message from Proverbs was on our Speech. Since I’d just written a LiveDifferent challenge on speech (and actually Pastor Joel used that James 2 video that was posted here last week!), I didn’t want to repeat myself. Then again, Jesus repeated Himself, and I think the value of watching our speech is worth repeating!
But this past week it was one particular thing that stood out to me, even though I’d written about the very verse the week before: The reality that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (Luke 6:45). Pastor Joel gave the illustration that sometimes we say things, and then we catch ourselves and say, “Oh I didn’t mean that! That’s so unlike me to say something like that. THat’s totally not what I meant!” ANd he pointed out–no, that’s not true. You did mean it, that’s why you said it. You are that kind of person, and you did mean exactly whaht you said and how you said it because your words pour out of your heart. So we can try all we want to change our words, but the problem is our hearts.
I couldn’t breathe for a moment as God’s convicting Spirit began to work, causing my heart to physically ache. The problem is my heart.
We all have people in our lives who challenge us. Perhaps it’s a daily battle not to be irritated, hurt, frustrated, critical. Perhaps we always have to watch what we say, bite our tongues, carefully choose our response. While that is fine and good (better than spouting off!), the real problem is that we lack love. As clear as the pastor’s voice, I could hear God’s Spirit asking me, “Do you love?” Peter exhorts us, “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins” (1 Pet. 4:8). The real problem when we find our reactions and words welling up threatening to spew out is that our hearts are wicked, and we don’t really love people. If we really loved them, that supernatural love would cover their sins and shortcomings, the same way that love covers ours. If we’re honest, we don’t love our enemies. We don’t even love our families! Our love is so weak, so tempermental, so conditional. We are fair-weather lovers.
So this week I just began praying that God would not just change my speech, my attitude, my outward actions, but that God would do a work from the inside out. “Change me from the inside,” is my plea. Help me love. Change my heart. I don’t just want to hold my tongue, Lord, I want You to hold my heart. From the Inside-Out, Lord, change this heart.