Good evening y’all. Today we looking at Matthew 12.

I am focusing todays blog on verses 33 – 37

Be Blessed 🙂

“If you grow a healthy tree, you’ll pick healthy fruit. If you grow a diseased tree, you’ll pick worm-eaten fruit. The fruit tells you about the tree.“You have minds like a snake pit! How do you suppose what you say is worth anything when you are so foul-minded? It’s your heart, not the dictionary, that gives meaning to your words. A good person produces good deeds and words season after season. An evil person is a blight on the orchard. Let me tell you something: Every one of these careless words is going to come back to haunt you. There will be a time of Reckoning. Words are powerful; take them seriously. Words can be your salvation. Words can also be your damnation”. (Matthew 12: 33-37 MSG)

“A tree is identified by its fruit. If a tree is good, its fruit will be good. If a tree is bad, its fruit will be bad. You brood of snakes! How could evil men like you speak what is good and right? For whatever is in your heart determines what you say. A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. And I tell you this, you must give an account on judgment day for every idle word you speak. The words you say will either acquit you or condemn you.” (Matthew 12: 33-37 NLT)

What kind of fruit are you producing?. According to the above verses, a tree is known by the fruit it bears. You can’t plant an orange tree and expect to see apple fruits on the tree. So it is with our hearts. It is whatever seeds you plant in it that you will reap. If you plant good seeds, you will reap good harvest/fruits. If you plant bad seeds, you will reap bad harvest/fruits.

Our words are a direct reflection of whats in our hearts. Verse 34 tells us whatever is in our hearts determines what we say. Luke 6:45 also says a similar thing: “A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of”. (Luke 6:45 NIV). This is the reason why we are told in Proverbs to guard our hearts.

“Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life”. (Proverbs 4: 23 NLT)

If we fill our hearts with evil thoughts, then we will only produce evil words but on the other hand if we fill our hearts with good thoughts, then we will produce good words. We need to guard our hearts by carefully selecting the thoughts we allow in. Philippians 4: 8 says: “And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise”. (NLT)

I found a few verses in proverbs about our words:

“Those who guard their lips preserve their lives, but those who speak rashly will come to ruin.”. (Proverbs 13:3 NIV)

“Watch your words and hold your tongue; you’ll save yourself a lot of grief”. (Proverbs 21: 23 MSG)

“The tongue can bring death or life; those who love to talk will reap the consequences”.(Proverbs 18:21 NLT)

Verse 36 says we will give account of every evil/ idle word we speak. That’s a bit scary for me. I would love to say that every word out of my mouth is good, but that would make me a liar. I’m still work in progress but this verse is another reminder of why we need to constantly renew our minds so the words that come of our mouth glorifies God.

Let’s examine our words today.  Will Jesus be happy to hear the things coming out of our mouths or will He be disappointed?

I will conclude with the words of David in Psalms 141

“Take control of what I say, O Lord,
    and guard my lips.
Don’t let me drift toward evil
    or take part in acts of wickedness.
Don’t let me share in the delicacies
    of those who do wrong” ( Psalms 141: 3-4 NLT)

Thanks for joining today.

Have a blessed evening 🙂

***With God all things are possible***