Daily Devotional
"Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks."
Matthew 12:34
Jesus is not saying it is wrong to call Him Lord. It is exactly the right thing to call Him. In the world Matthew first wrote to, confessing that Jesus is Lord was a radical and costly thing, because the accepted confession of the day was that Caesar is lord. To say Jesus is Lord was to swear your loyalty to Him over every earthly power. There is nothing wrong with that confession. The problem is a right confession offered with a wrong heart.
The contrast Jesus draws is not between grace and merit; it is between profession and a way of life. Words are the surface, but the heart is the source. Think of the mountain and the river. Whatever water is frozen at the top of the mountain is exactly what floods down into the valley when the thaw comes. If clean water reaches the valley, the mountain held clean water. If foul water pours down, no amount of admiring the beauty of the peak will make it clean. Your words are the river; your heart is the mountain.
This is why a confession is not necessarily a conversion, and a wedding vow is not a marriage. Words are cheap and easy to counterfeit. When someone wrongs you and the harsh words come rushing out, those words are not the problem; they are the revelation. They show what was already stored up at the top of the mountain. So the question this morning is not whether the word Lord is on your lips. The question is whether the Lord is on the throne of your life.
Today's Challenge
Listen to the words that rush out of you when you are crossed or disappointed. What do they reveal about what is stored in your heart? Where do you need the source cleaned, not just the surface managed?
Prayer
Lord Jesus, I have said the right words about You while my heart wandered somewhere else. Forgive me for confessions offered with a divided heart. Do not only clean my speech; cleanse the source. Take the throne of my life so that what flows out of me proves that You truly reign within me. Amen.
