Today, I’m going to stop and listen to myself. What are the confessions of my mouth? Are they statements of faith? Or are they expressions of doubt? Or, just as significant, is there silence where there should be faith?
When Peter made his bold pronouncement: You are the Christ! Son of the Living God! Jesus told him, Good for you, Peter – the Holy Spirit gave you that answer! When the Holy Spirit prompts me, I’d better open my mouth, and expect something amazing.
I love the way Neil breaks down the relationship between faith and confession: Confessing what we believe gives proof to our faith…confession doesn’t create faith; faith makes possible true confession. To me, it’s similar to the connection between faith and good deeds – one shows you have the other; without confession, where’s the faith?
Here’s the verse I was pondering:
For whatever is in your heart determines what you say. A good person produces good words from a good heart, and an evil person produces evil words from an evil heart. Matthew 12:34-35
The New King James says it this way: …out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. I can’t work on what I say without first working on what’s in my heart; I do this by reading, reading, reading God’s word.
If you’re keeping track, yesterday I wrote that I would report on my leap of faith. It didn’t come in any dramatic fashion. It consisted of wrestling with leaving my son at a play room in a store we went to; I knew it was time to leave God in charge of him and step away, but all the past experiences came crashing back in.
In the end, I did it – and he was fine. It was a funny test of obedience – most moms would jump at the chance to shop alone! – but that was the deal. (If you’re a new reader, I have a special needs son, who is also the light of my life.) It was a tough one, but God met me there.
No comments:
Post a Comment