The Mouth Reveals the Heart

This morning I am led to the 5^th verse in the Roman Road to salvation, Romans 10:9 for my continued study on the word “heart”. This verse is enlightening yet it is verse 10 that captured me this morning as to my learning for the day.

“⁹because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” – Romans 10:9-10 (ESV)

Yes, we believe in our heart and confess with our mouth. Here is how I was struck this morning. The mouth of the believer reveals our heart’s belief. It is something that cannot be forgotten or set aside. Our belief is not to be kept to ourselves. We are to declare our belief in the LORD for the world to know. We are to believe and declare.

Our heart is the vessel where the LORD resides in us. It is vital that we allow Him to take up residence in our heart. But those around us cannot see our heart and that He does indeed reside there. So we need a way to show the LORD to the world. The first way for that is to declare Him to the world by our mouth. We are to speak of the LORD. We are to sing of and to the LORD. We are to announce His presence in our lives and for all the world to see and take hold of Him, and that is done with our mouth.

I know what you may be thinking, but aren’t we to demonstrate the LORD to the world through our actions. The answer is yes, but look at how I indicated we declare the LORD to the world, “first” is with our mouth after we have believed with and in our hearts. Then we live our lives continuing to speak of the LORD and acting as He intends us to act to fulfill the work He has for us.

I am not great at either of these by some standards. I have work to do in being more and more like Christ would have me be. But one thing I do know is that those who are around me most do know that Jesus is LORD as I have declared my heart’s belief in Him with my mouth.

What is your process in declaring the LORD? Are you relying solely on your actions to speak for your beliefs? Where actions are important, what if you were to confess with your mouth that the LORD indeed resides in your heart?

Keep the Promises of Your Heart

How often is it that we make promises and then go back on them for one reason or another. I see it all too often in society that promises are made with the mouth and yet, when it came right to it to fulfill those promises, the promise was only from the mouth and the promise that was on the heart, that was not brought forward for all to know was kept as opposed to the one that was stated to all.

“¹⁷I cried to him with my mouth,

and high praise was on my tongue.

¹⁸If I had cherished iniquity in my heart,

the Lord would not have listened.”

— Psalm 66:17-18 (ESV)

Here we see the psalmist speaking of just such those promises and the need to let known those promises that are of the heart. In verse 18 above the psalmist calls out that the promises to the LORD are indeed from the heart and they were called out aloud. If the promises of the heart were anything but those that were to the LORD, He would not have listened and been there to fulfill His promise in return.

“¹³I will come into your house with burnt offerings;

I will perform my vows to you,

¹⁴that which my lips uttered

and my mouth promised when I was in trouble.”

— Psalm 66:13-14 (ESV)

So as was mentioned in a previous post, it is that we should be sacrificing our heart to the LORD before all else and then we can bring additional offerings to Him. It all starts with out heart when it comes to the LORD. Then, as you can see in the above verses, we can bring the additional offerings to Him and He will accept them as also coming from our heart.

We do a lot of promising in this world and then we are pressured to go back on them. It is natural for us to make statements and promises to “save our own skin and face” with others. It is hard to keep those promises, especially when they put us in jeopardy. It is truly only those promises that come from the heart that we will find conviction to keep. And that is where we should remember to start.

Our promises should be coming from the heart to the LORD. We are to reach out to Him and give all of ourselves to Him starting with the heart and once we have, as noted before, He accepts that sacrifice and blesses us. Once we have given the promise to the LORD from our heart, we can then proceed to offer to Him the rest of our offerings as He has listened to and attended to us. Keep those promises of the heart more than anything.

What is your approach to promises? Are you intending to keep them until something gets in your way? What if you approached all promises from you heart, making keeping them easier to manage as they are your true promise as those you make to the LORD?

Not Just External, But Internal

“¹⁴Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart

be acceptable in your sight,

O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.”

— Psalm 19:14 (ESV)

How often have we been “in” a conversation, speaking and hearing, but not really there at all as we are distracted by other goings on. I know that I have and I will admit, that in my prayers and calls on God I am not always there. When I look back, I find that I may have said the right things, but in my head and heart I am distracted and not really in the conversation with God at all. I am reminded this morning that it is not just with our mouth we are to be in commune with God, but our hearts are to me fully engaged as well.

I know that I am “cherry picking” one verse this morning, and I have spoken against that in the past, but hear me out. The title of the passage in my ESV bible this morning is, “The Law of the LORD is Perfect”. That being so, why would we allow ourselves to be distracted away from Him. I know that in sports I long to see things that are identified as “perfect”, the perfect game pitched in baseball, the perfect shot in golf, the perfect pass, or the perfect routine in gymnastics. I am mesmerized in those instances and my focus in fully on the moment. I have to ask myself, if those things are identified as perfect and I am fully engaged, why would I be distracted from the one true perfect one in our LORD.

It is up to me to devote myself to the LORD and what better way to start my days than to fully engage with Him in my prayer. From my mouth to my heart, I am to be mesmerized by Him and His perfection. I am to be all in with Him and allow the LORD to be the captivator of my entire self. I should be with Him both externally and internally.

How is your prayer with the LORD? Are you going through the motions eternally while being distracted internally? What if you were to fully engage in the perfection of the LORD and devote yourself to Him with your words and your heart and allow Him to captivate you?