Heart Overflow

“For the mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart.” (Matthew 12:34b)

“The man drives out demons only by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons.” So said the Pharisees about Jesus, and that brought a pointed response from Jesus about how a divided kingdom cannot stand, and about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit and its unforgivability. Their statement also set the context for Jesus statement above, “For the mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart.”

The heart is like a storeroom: in it we store what we treasure, what we value. If we value our walk with God, then we will store in our hearts what we learn from walking through this life with Him. When that is what we then value in our hearts, we will find our conversation gravitating toward the things of God. The same is true about family, friends, politics, education, or whatever else we may value. We will store it in our hearts, and we will then speak from that overflow.

We should note as well, as Jesus Himself did, that the same is true on the negative side. If we value what is evil, we will speak from that overflow. If, for example, we are focused on greed or pride, then those values will ultimately flow out of the heart and color everything we say. Thus, the statement the Pharisees made gives an indication that their hearts were far from the Lord, in that they lacked the spiritual perception to realize that the Spirit in Jesus was the Holy Spirit of God. This is one of the reasons we are told in Scripture that we will be judged by our own words. What we speak comes from the overflow of what is in our hearts.

Thus, the call of God to us is to bring our hearts before Him and ask Him to fill them with that which is good and right, that which honors Him. A heart filled with the Holy Spirit does just that.

Lord, May we each be filled with Your Spirit, that our actions and our words may bring honor to You. Amen.