The Bible says:
“For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: these are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man.”
— Matthew 15: 19-20
Government regulations require manufacturers to place on the container that their product comes in a list of the contents.
A book has on one of the first pages a content page that lists the subject matter and chapter headings. Every person according to our text has content as well.
But I’ve yet to see someone with a label stuck on them listing their contents. We discovered a person’s content after being around them and listening to their speech and seeing the way they live.
The content of what we are is in the heart. The heart is my being, my person, my inner man, my spirit, the source of everything about me.
The source of the life I live through is the outer man.
“Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”
— Proverbs 4: 23
The contents of some containers are fluid. Man’s content is also fluid, for his character is always changing.
Because the content of some containers is poisonous it would be dangerous to release their contents where others might be harmed. Because the content of some men is so evil it is hazardous to be in their presence when they open their mouth and release their contents publicly, for they have a septic tank for a heart and a sewer line for a mouth.
As the contents of a container are released through his mouth. For all the many “things” that are in a man he is still fundamentally empty.
There is a God-shaped void in every man that can only be filled by Jesus Christ. We try to fill that emptiness with temporal and material things until by faith we receive Jesus Christ as our Savior and He takes up His abode in us, and we are then full.
Then our contents consist of God the Holy Spirit and our old sin nature. If the Holy Spirit fills us and rules us out of our vessel will proceed godliness.
(Galatians 5: 22--
26)
If we let our sinful nature fill us and rule us, out of our vessel will proceed ungodliness. (Galatians 5: 19-21)
Of which of the two is there abundance?
“For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.”
— Matthew 12: 34
James H. Cagle is a Ray City resident who pastored several churches for a total of 11 years.
Email him at pastorjameshcagle@ yahoo.com
