If It Stinks It's Probably Garbage

Jesus talked about treasure and riches, wealth and mammon. He didn't shy away from using the most valuable thing in our world as an object lesson in His teaching. One of His most personal teachings, found in Luke 6:45 gives us a profound way to know what is buried deep in our heart.  Jesus says, " a good person out of the good treasure in his heart produces good talk while an evil man out of the evil treasure in his heart produces evil talk."  Jesus says it's our heart that does our talking..

The word Jesus uses, treasure, can mean a jewelry box or a coffin. The Bible speaks specifically of treasure because the word implies something that is hidden or buried.. Jesus is painting a picture of our heart, our most valuable organ, the seat of our feelings and their origins, as both chests of buried treasure and coffins full of dead garbage.

We have many ways to excuse the things that come out of our mouths. Often after saying something ugly, vile or unkind we gasp, "I don't know where that came from!"  For a believer that statement is just not true. Jesus has told us that out of the abundance of our heart our mouth speaks. Whatever our heart is most full of at the moment will come pouring out of our mouth. What we say to others, what we mumble to ourselves, what we choose as our figures of speech can be like the stuff that boils over from a pot on the stove, a huge stinky worthless mess.

 We may be speaking truth when we say to someone, "I didn't mean it", but it is self deception to ignore that the mess we made came from our heart.  What comes out of our mouth depends on whether it came from a heart coffin or a heart jewelery box. This is not something Jesus taught to bring us condemnation or guilt. Jesus taught this so we would see our verbal exchanges as burning bushes of self revelation-as a key to  the mysteries of our heart.

Our world is full of death. The wisdom of God tells us anxiety in our hearts weighs us down; that the delay of hopes and dreams wounds our hearts and an aching heart breaks our spirit. Often  we think we are sharing ourselves with each other when we're  really sharing our darkness with each other. It's the devil who operates in darkness. He loves producing darkness and death in our heart and has worked diligently to build coffins filled with our hurts, disappointments and the cruelties of others. The enemy of our soul has a legal right to operate in darkness. In it's recesses he can hide lies, shameful thoughts, condemning beliefs, self destructive thinking and angry words that destroy our lives and those we love.

The enemy has been very busy convincing us to bury those stinking coffins deeper and deeper and deeper into the ground of our heart because He knows the Light of God's love for us will dispel the darkness and bring healing and wholeness. Yes, our trash becomes God's treasure when bathed in the Light of His Love and Truth. What we say to others, what we choose as our figures of speech, the self-talk going on in our heart can be a brilliant, bubbling fountain that refreshes and brings life. Our  good treasures are Valentines of Jesus' Light, Love and Truth tucked away in our heart treasure chests. We have stored up Heavenly Treasure, Kingdom stuff, within us and just as He promised, treasure flows from our hearts like the Living Water

Life produces life and death produces death and our Sweet Lord wants a relationship with us that is  completely alive, honest and real.  Nothing is hidden from Him and He is not intimidated or offended by our secret garbage or its stink. David said,  "God, darkness can't hide from You, but the night shines as much as the day. The dark and the light are the same for You."  We can't hide from God. No, the dark coffins of our heart can become secrets we keep from ourselves, but just as He did in the beginning with Adam and Eve, He comes to look for us where we are hiding and brings  a plan to redeem every worthless thing for gold.

The Apostle John shared the heart of God this way, if we claim that we live the experience of a shared life with Jesus and continue to stumble around in darkness we are not being truthful. We have not shared that part of ourselves with Him, but if we expose the contents of our heart to His Light, we will experience intimacy with HIm and fellowship with each other as He purges our darkness with His Light.

We all need heart healing. In Revelation when Jesus is standing at a door knocking, He is knocking at the heart of believers, not unbelievers. He is speaking to those who think they are rich, but have places in their heart empty of Heavenly Treasure. Our Lord says, open the door and I'll come into your darkness and just like I broke bread and drank wine with my earthly disciples I will sit down with you in fellowship there and speak the Light of my Spirit and Life into your darkness.

Our heart speaks what it is full of and when we hear dead stuff coming out of our mouths or see the light in someone's face go out because of the death we have spoken to them; when we find ourselves hiding among the coffins of our heart graveyard, we only need to invite Jesus in.  Oh, you do remember His light has been known to bust the door right off of a grave?

LET THERE BE LIGHT!!