Day 2787 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Matthew 15:8 NIV

Where is our heart? Or rather, what is inhabiting our heart? Or maybe even better yet, what is inhibiting our heart? You see, I think we vastly undervalue the importance of heart in this story of our faith. I think we tend to fall into this assumption that a bunch of fancy words that sound pleasing to the ear will be enough. We approach our faith as if it's something that can built on nothing more than rhetoric. And in doing so, we fail to take hold of the necessity of a repentant and regenerate heart.

So much of what this world displays as religious is lacking heart. It's all just skin-deep. It's a matter of putting on a show to satisfy a crowd without any passion or desperation or true torment at the state of the souls that are in this place. Sadly, it's all become a rather light-hearted affair in which people mainly look forward to holidays or large social gatherings or the soft-ball games. But the true purpose of following Christ is found in learning just how wretched our hearts have become.

And that message is one that has largely become lost in our modern religion. For a couple of days now, we've been discussing our tendency to wander and lose sight of the goal and take our eyes off the prize. Instead, we’ve chosen to live our lives as if nothing is actually all that serious. We’ve decided that our choices are rather insignificant, and our hearts have in turn grown near death as they’ve lost all passion and purpose. We've knowingly chosen to live as if our choices carry no weight, hold no responsibility, and offer no consequences. And that is evidenced in the continued unraveling of a society that has long been in dire trouble.

All along this journey, we've continued to all but miss the mark as we continue to aim for Christ with largely nothing but our words. We sing songs that sound amazing. We craft these sermons that have a poetic flow that appeals to our desire to be entertained. We practice prayer as if it's something to be perfected. We edit and tweak and try to make our messages sounds just right. But all the while, we forget that if our words aren't backed up with lives that give them their meaning then they're simply air.

And I think that's the message we find here in Matthew. For so long we've made a religion of blowing hot air. We've crafted a faith built on our ability to speak eloquently. We've set our sights on using language to convey a message that our hearts are maybe not fully willing to actually live up to. And in all the talking and singing and pretty sounding messages, we've forgotten that our hearts are where Christ died to live.

As we discussed yesterday, our lives reflect our hearts. The things we do send just as big of a message as our words ever will. The choices we make tell the world where our heart is aimed. The way in which we treat others echo the truth of whether or not Christ is truly the example in which we've chosen to adhere the rest of our stay. But all of that is forgotten when words become the main means of our faith. The heart has sadly taken a backseat to our lips, and friends, that simply isn't good enough.

It's not good enough because God knows the difference. This worldly religion that relies so heavily upon sounding just right and choosing all the fancy words may indeed fool those who hear it. But God knows our hearts. He knows our motives. He alone is able to read between the lines and discern whether or not we truly mean what we say. And that fact right there shows us why our hearts are so important in all this. They determine the trajectory of our lives. Our words just put that passion into syllables.

It's time that we understand the vast difference between sounding right and living right. Christ doesn't call us to be the best public speakers. He calls us to speak the truth. He doesn't ask us to go into all the world and entertain the people. He calls us to go into all the world and share the Good News that changes hearts. He doesn't need us to come up with pretty ways to make this Gospel sound pleasing to the ear. He needs us to take this message of salvation to the hearts that have been lost and left hurting in the aftermath of this world's rampant sin.

We can't keep stopping at words. We can't honor Him with our lips and allow our hearts to remain apart from Him. This faith is all or nothing, and it all starts in our heart. It flows from our heart. It is built in a heart of flesh that we receive from God in exchange for our old hearts of stone. Our words just prove that we've made that trade. Continuing to get this backward is not good enough because this land of the lost needs more than air. People need more than us telling them some great sounding message because words don't save. Hearing words and taking them to heart is what makes the difference.

In the end, He deserves more than our words. He deserves more than just a bunch of hot air that sounds great but basically amounts to nothing. It's not that words are worthless, it's just that they're really easy to manipulate. It's easy to say one thing yet mean another. It's easy to find a way to say something that sounds nice without actually believing it. That's why our hearts are so important. They give our words their meaning. And when it comes to our faith, if we don't mean it in our hearts then no amount of words can ever be enough.

As we’re told in Romans 10:9, “’If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.’” Our faith requires both. We declare with our mouths but we prove with our hearts. We can say something, but we have to believe it as well. Salvation is found in our hearts being set free from sin and restored to the One who fashioned them. That can only be accomplished through letting Christ in, not just saying that we have.

My whole point is that we can’t leave our salvation hinging on nothing but words. This place is all about making noise. But the only words that will matter in the end are either “Well done” or “I never knew you”. And if we allow our hearts to remain apart from God and continue to assume that words are enough, then we’ll be left hearing the latter.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold