“For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you, on the day of judgement people will have to account for every careless word they speak.”

Matthew 12:34b-36

The word “abundance” in this scripture has stuck out to me lately. I normally correlate it with a positive meaning, and I still do, but with a new revelation regarding this scripture. The word abundance means, “an extremely plentiful or over sufficient quantity or supply; an overflowing fullness.” This word usually makes me think of finances. However, when you look at the meaning of a word in the context that it is being used it reads differently. In this scripture, if I replaced abundance with the definition it reads: “For out of an extremely plentiful or over sufficient quantity or supply; an overflowing fullness of my heart, the mouth speaks” (Matt 12:34b). When I read it that way, I really consider, what all is inside of my heart that causes certain behaviors to be produced or words to be spoken. In order for an abundance of something to exist there has to be a depth for it to “fit in” if you will. Abundance cannot sit on the surface; thus, depth has to exist for there to be an abundance. For example, if I have an abundance of apples my barrel has to be deep for the all the apples to fit in, an abundance of apples won’t fit in a shallow barrel.

A few weeks ago, I felt like I was in a slump in an area of my life that I really wanted to correct, but no matter how hard I tried, it felt like a constant defeat. Flustered that I was coming to God again about this, I laid on the floor of my prayer closet and said “God, you gotta speak, because if you don’t speak soon, I’m leaving this prayer closet to go work out.” Almost immediately I heard Him tell me, “What’s the depth to the purity in your heart. If there is no depth is it really pure?” Well, that’s not what I was expecting, or maybe even wanting to hear, because that meant yet again, I had to look in the mirror, and I felt like I had already been staring in the mirror for quite some time.

Often times we hear the phrase, “the purity of our heart” in our Christian culture. We can quickly respond to that phrase and claim that our hearts are pure, but to what level are our hearts pure? What is the depth of that purity? We can easily and sometimes even casually say our hearts are pure, but have we allowed them to be searched to the depth that it goes? When our hearts are pure before God and we open up to allow Him to search the depth of our hearts, some junk can tend to show up. When waste comes to the surface, it doesn’t smell good, and it’s normally not something we are running to with excitement…almost like cleaning a Porta-Potty. Allowing our hearts to be searched is something that we have to intentionally do with purpose.

This current season we are in is the perfect time to allow God to go to the depths of our hearts and uproot ANYTHING that is not from Him.

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
Let’s think of this visually. Cleaning our hearts to ensure they are pure all the way to the depth that they go, is similar to cleaning the hair out of the drain of a sink or tub.

We have two daughters and they have a lot of hair, so the drains in their sink and tub needs to be cleaned out often so it doesn’t get clogged. We have a long, yellow, plastic stick that we place down the drain and twist to pull up all their hair that has been down there for ‘X’ amount of days or weeks. Sometimes when we clean it out it doesn’t even look like hair. Various objects may be attached to the hair, like hair ties, bobby pins or one time there was even a big glob of slime tangled with it. When we pull this hair up, one thing that almost is faithfully present is an odor from the hair sitting down there for so long. This is definitely not a task that we run to with an overwhelming amount of joy, however, it needs to be done to prevent damage and to allow for proper drainage and use of the sink and tub.

Likewise, with our hearts, when we allow God to search it and go deeper, sometimes some unknown objects, things we didn’t even know were there, are found. These things don’t smell good and need to be dealt with or just like the hair left in the drain, it will cause our hearts to be clogged. His love will flow through us properly because in the depth of our hearts there is purity, so the abundance of our hearts will speak the right things and produce the right fruit.

Let’s allow God to search the depth of our hearts today, so we can have the freedom to reign the way His Word promises. (Nicole Farmer)

TODAY’S DECLARATION
“My heart is open for the depths of it to be searched and purified before You, Lord. I want You to have Your way so that I may reign in Your freedom.”

TODAY’S BIBLE READING

• Old Testament: Isaiah 17-20; Proverbs 21:17-31
• New Testament: Luke 22:14-23; Hebrews 4:12-16