EARS, HEARTS, AND LIPS
“Pay attention and turn your ear to the sayings of the wise; apply your heart to what I teach, for it is pleasing when you keep them in your heart and have all of them ready on your lips.”
Proverbs 22:17-18 NIV
Don’t take your hearing for granted. God designed our ears for a purpose and there is a cycle revealed in this Proverb. Ears to hearts to lips – this is how we gather information and pass it on to others. From the book of Romans, chapter 10 and verse 17, we read that “faith comes by hearing”. What is heard is the Word of God – the teachings of God – and when we pay attention to those words our faith and confidence increase and become stronger.
The process of hearing with our ears opens the pathway to our heart, our inner being. From our heart, information and words flow forth from our mouth/lips. Whatever flows in will also flow out – good or evil, blessings or cursing, encouragement or discouragement. So, be careful what you listen to – guard your heart and keep your lips from spewing evil.
*By Pastor John Weigelt
“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil” (Isaiah 5: 20)
Our secular culture challenges the very notion of good and evil. But to say that there are No absolutes is itself an absolute statement!
So how do we know what’s evil and what’s good? Where do we get our sense of “oughtness” … from our parents?? Where did they get it? Psychologist, Jordan Peterson says that we cannot create our own values; values impose themselves on us, independent of our own will.
Mark Twain said that knowing what’s right is not the problem.. doing what’s right is the problem.
Like us, the Apostle Paul struggled with this- “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing”, (Romans 7: 19)
The struggle with “Oughtness” is universal. Here’s the point: If there really is a moral law outside ourselves, then there has to be a Moral Law Giver, which is God Himself!
*By George Olivo