You don’t say?!
President Calvin Coolidge (pictured at right) once said, “I have never been hurt by anything I didn’t say.”
I’d be willing to bet all the gold in Fort Knox that Coolidge was wrong, even if he wasn’t aware of it at the time.
What you don’t say can still hurt you. If the thoughts and emotions you entertain, even if left unspoken, are ungodly in nature, then you harm yourself by harboring such thoughts and feelings. A sinful thought life corrupts your emotions, and fostering such internal corruption will warp the life as a whole.
Because what is unspoken and “hidden” away on the inside matters greatly, Jesus spoke out about the hypocrisy of trying to make the outside look good while the inside is a grave.
“What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy — full of greed and self-indulgence! You blind Pharisee! First wash the inside of the cup and the dish, and then the outside will become clean, too. What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs — beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity. Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness,” Matthew 23:25-28.
Essential to our transformation is allowing the Holy Spirit to make a necessary change in us …
“Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes,” Ephesians 4:23.
What’s your thought life doing for you: glorifying God, or fostering corruption?
Scotty
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