Out of the Heart
How to keep sinful speech from slipping out
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Don’t you understand that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach and then passes out into the sewer? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these things defile a person.
Matthew 15:17-18 (NET)
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“I don’t know where THAT came from.”
“Oh, that just slipped out.”
“That’s not like me, I can’t believe I said that.”
Phrases like these are what we say whenever we get so frustrated at something or someone that we say something that would normally be held inside.
It could be an angry attack, or a curse-word, or any number of things.
Now, here’s the harsh reality:
It came from within.
Jesus makes it clear in these verses that the things that “slip out” were always there in the first place.
If I make an angry, sarcastic insult, it’s because that’s inside me.
I’m a mess of sin.
If you shake up a bottle of water until it spills all over your hand and onto the floor, it’s not the shaking that caused the floor to be wet — it’s because there was water inside.
Life is going to shake us up. And if we spill verbal garbage all over the place, then it’s not because of the circumstances that are shaking us …
It’s because that’s what is inside us.
Thankfully, Jesus came to forgive & remove sin.
Transformation is possible through the work of the Holy Spirit.
And that work accelerates if we start replacing our “insides” with better things … such as Scripture. That way, whenever life shakes us up, what “slips out” is God’s Word.
Can you imagine the blessing THAT would be?
— Ricky Ketchum
Copyright © 2025 by Ricky Ketchum. All rights reserved. Unauthorized duplication prohibited.
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