Matthew 15:10
And he called the people to him and said to them, "Hear and understand:
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it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person."
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Then the disciples came and said to him, "Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?"
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He answered, "Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up.
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Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit."
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But Peter said to him, "Explain the parable to us."
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And he said, "Are you also still without understanding?
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Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled?
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But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person.
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For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.
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These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone."
These are profound words from the lips of Jesus. Long before depth psychologists stumbled on the reality that the mind contains a conscious dimension as well as an unconscious dimension, Jesus reveals that the deep heart is the seat from which all life is driven. The heart lies below the level of immediate conscious awareness. It is at the depth of the human psyche. From a perspective of what you are aware of at a conscious level, you can have thoughts, intents, and emotions, and by the way feelings, though as you have heard me say many times, by the time you get to the realm of the feelings you are at the borderline between what is conscious and what is in the deeper realm of the heart and unconscious.
Realize this: there are NO mistakes in communication. The only mistakes are that the outcomes we get aren't always what we planned. In other words the meaning of your communication is what other people experience when you communicate, at a feeling level if they are truly listening.
When I say truly listening, I am not implying that we are deceptive in our listening, although there are evil people who indeed are that way. What I mean by truly listening is that there is something in us that wants to genuinely hear what others are saying because we are social beings, and we cannot know ourselves by ourselves. Scripture makes clear that it is "not good for man to be alone". As the late, famed anthropologist Gregory Bateson astutely observed, "It takes two to know one."
When someone says something that hurts our feelings, we all know what that is like. Mind you, there are times when we need to be aware that when a true friend tells us the truth in love, it can hurt our feelings, however, it is for our own good. Solomon informs us in Proverbs 27:6, "Faithful are the wounds of a friend..." When a true friend has to tell us something we do not want to hear, it can "wound" our feelings. However, the piercing of the arena of feelings can then give us access to the deeper realm of the heart where our motives and our impulses have their source, and it can serve to bring something to the light that is hurtful in our lives and as a result is impeding our growth and development, and may indeed also be hurting others.
I am sure you have heard the expression, "Hurt people hurt people!" The longer we live with certain language patterns, moods and emotions, and feelings (which show up in your body, your physiology) the more deeply engrained and embedded certain habitual patterns become. So much so that you have also heard the expression, "You can't teach an old dog new tricks". Some people tend to stop learning in life and wreak havoc in their lives and the lives of others for that reason.
What is deepest within you reveals who you truly are. Jesus is saying that when you bring things to speech, they are not coming "off the top of your head", rather they are emanating from the depth of your heart. When others experience those words you speak, there is animation and energy behind them, so they experience the feeling content of those words at a profoundly deep and visceral level. In fact, you can say, "You know I really like you", when in fact, you don't like a person, and what they will actually feel is the negatively charged emotional energy behind your words, and they will get exactly what you are saying, even though you are masking it! That by the way is a form of manipulation. Sadly, the person doing the manipulating in that case, isn't always aware that this is the case because they are so blinded by their own opinion, they cannot see the forest for the trees of their own heart.
When Jesus uses the word "heart", whether we use the Greek word in the New Testament, which is kardia, or the Hebrew word, which is leb, while it could be used for the physical organ of the heart, it implies "the seat and center of all physical and spiritual life and the vigor and sense of physical life". In other words, it is the deep inner self, the hidden person, at the center of your "thoughts, passions, desires, appetites, affections, purposes, and endeavors."
Believe it or not, when you are speaking to others, they are getting the impact of all of that because words create feelings! This is so vitally important, and I often wrestle with wanting to write volumes on it. Take this to heart: your words carry either the energetic power of life and animation or the negative de-motivational power of deadly things. Jesus said that "idle words" (Matthew 12:36) are in fact, in the Greek, negatively energized words. Jesus on the other hand, in speaking of himself said, "
It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life" (John 6:63).
Abiding in Christ involves the adjustment of our words as a result of the anchoring of our heart in and by the Spirit, and meditating on the truth. When you and I say things, we want to be sure we are being transparent about our feelings, however being transparent is not about venting on others, or dumping on others. It is about owning, describing, and taking full responsibility for the act of communication, realizing that there are no mistakes in communication.
If you have ever heard someone say when they make a statement and get a negative reaction, "that is not what I meant" or "that wasn't in my heart", they aren't being as honest and transparent as they think. Notice I put think in italics, because that is their own conscious response to their own words. Yet others who heard and had to receive and process those words felt the impact those words actually carried!
You could make an argument that Jesus, was talking about the profound reality that emotional intelligence requires a profound self-awareness that leads to other awareness. Oh how we as believers, and how we as a culture need to learn these lessons, again and again. When we stop learning, we stop growing. When we stop growing we stop living. When we stop living, we start dying. It is essential that you and I be life-long learners.
Beloved, I have spent 43 years in laboring for Christ and His Gospel. Most of that time has been spent in the heart of urban America. If we foolishly believe that racism is a non-issue we do great harm to ourselves and others. Scripture is replete with warnings about "the sins of the fathers". This nation has a long way to go to dismantle racism. There is no way around that. I have no desire to support, condone, or affirm those who hold to the belief that they are racially superior. Such beliefs are vile and defiling. The unrest we are seeing because of "the sins of the fathers" isn't going to go away because some conservatives say, "it isn't a problem", and others seek to politicize it. It has to be addressed summarily and condemned whenever and wherever it manifests its ugly, demonic, head. It has no place in a civil society.
There is a whole lot that is being released into the atmosphere from the realm of the invisible. Words are the way that is taking place. Pray for our government leaders that they would use words wisely, and be instruments of peace-making and not division and strife. Pray that their hearts be in a place of awareness so that rather than vent and dump, they would be transparent and express the kinds of things that make for peace. If you carefully read Scripture, you know that the answer will not come from a political posture. It has to be a Kingdom-oriented response. The Church, while already marginalized in this current culture, has to find its voice again, and model what it means to be reconciled. If the Church can be re-formed in this current culture, there is hope that the culture can be rebuilt.
We are in a cultural crisis, with the Western world on the verge, and perhaps the Eastern world, on the verge of collapse. We have been here before in history, however, the markers are present everywhere now because of technology and the speed with which information travels. God has brought us to the Kingdom for such a time as this. I am asking us as a covenant family and covenant community, to BE a people of the renewed heart, and speak the truth in real love, and model what the culture desperately needs. Let's be the light and salt God has called us to be.
Tomorrow I am going to continue with this brand new series, and it couldn't be timely than now:
Wolves And Serpents: Awakening To And Conquering Manipulation
I am persuaded, this series is going to bring both healing and deliverance, as well as a pathway to transformation for all of us.
Come expecting and bring others who are also ready to be healed and whole.
Love,
Bishop
