Apple pie sounds good! The first apple I pick up has a dark spot on it. I’ll just cut around it. But look – the core is rotten! Same thing with the next apple, and the next. I’ve let the apples sit too long, and now most of them are rotten.
People can be like apples. They may seem okay, but when a crisis comes, hatred and violence rise to the surface. Does outside pressure cause this bubbling up of hate-filled words and violent actions, or is it something deeper? We see people’s actions, but God looks at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7).
Often evil grows because people have not allowed the goodness of God to change them inside. Evil takes over when godliness leaves. The Bible tells us that “the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” If evil is stored up in a person’s heart, that is what will come out (Luke 6:45).
I recently had a dream that filled me with the expectation that God was going to do something “new.” So I looked up the word “new” in a Bible concordance and found Ezekiel’s words: “Turn away from all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart” (Ezek. 18:30,31). Ezekiel mentions this three times in his book, so it must be important. He also wrote: “I (God) will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you” (36:26) and “I will give them an undivided heart… Then they will follow My decrees and be careful to keep My laws (11:19,20).
God wants to change hearts filled with hate and vengeance into new hearts that follow His just laws. His words bring forgiveness through Jesus Christ and healing to the very core of our being, influencing our words and actions for good.
What’s coming out of our mouths? We need to check our core.