Bucket Check

Wouldn't it be great if someone would invent a "word trap" - uniquely designed to catch those unfiltered words that escape our lips! Like so many other inventions, it would only help bandage the real problem. God said, "Put away from you a deceitful mouth and put devious speech far from you." (Proverbs 4:23). Taking deceitful mouths and devious speech out of today's mix would be a revolutionary improvement but that would amount to great restraint. In the previous verse, however, God declares the ultimate recipe for gracious speech and behavior: "Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life." (V.23). You see, the mouth isn't the problem - it's the heart. Dr. J. Vernon McGee wrote, "what is in the well of the heart will come up through the bucket of the mouth." We may hold-back with careful restraint and watch over that "bucket" fairly well, but there will always be a trigger that releases the true condition of the heart. We know this is true! It all ends with what we feed the heart; someone put it this way - "trash in, trash out." If we feed our hearts unholy things, we can rightly expect unholy hearts. In contrast, if we nourish our hearts with The Word of God which produces the Beauty of Christ within us, we can expect grace and beauty to pour-forth in our speech and behavior. Let's be wise watch over our hearts ... check your bucket.