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Did I catch your attention?!  Any one of us would want to know if our slip was showing.  We would feel less embarrassed to have someone tell us about it than to discover later that we spent an entire day in public with our underwear hanging out!  Did you know that we often run around with our spiritual "underwear" showing?  Let's take a look at this to see where our slip is exposed.

Matthew 15:18 says, "But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth

from the heart; and they defile the man." 

James 3:2 says, "...If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body." 

James 3:6 says, "And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell." 

James 3:8 says,  "But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison."

What comes out of our mouth is an expression of our heart.  Matthew 15:18 means exactly what it says -- what comes out of my mouth shows what is really in my heart.  Have you ever noticed how we like to minimize what comes out of our mouths as "slips of the tongue?"  We actually believe that we didn't really mean what we said.  I believe this is why God says we will give account for every idle word we speak (Matthew 12:36).  He doesn't mean every lazy word we speak.  We will give an account for the words that we say in unguarded moments because they show what is really in our hearts.

This issue of speech reflecting the heart came up within my accountability group (a mutual mentoring relationship*) a couple years ago.  As we prayed for God to show us the truth about this, He began to draw our attention to little "slips" of the tongue.   We realized that we usually either ignore these slips or we excuse them by saying, "Well, I didn't really mean that..." followed by a verbal retraction or white-wash job.  We learned to instead take note of those moments when our spiritual slips were showing and ask God to show us the truth of what was in our heart that motivated the words.  It has been a tremendous learning opportunity.  It is also perpetually humbling to realize that we never "arrive" at some spiritual plane where we have victory over the slips of the tongue that expose the secrets of our hearts.

We tend to see some forms of speech as more acceptable than others.   For instance, we would classify screaming and swearing as ungodly speech.  But any form of speech can express wickedness in the heart.  Jeremiah 17:9 says, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?"  When we look at this Scripture, especially in light of the passage in James that is referenced above, we have to agree that for as long as we live on this earth, our hearts will still have deceived and deceitful places.  And those sinful places are exposed in the idle words that leave our lips.  Everything that comes out of our mouths can be an expression of the truth of the deceitfulness heart -- whether it's disguised as softly spoken, humorous, sarcastic, etc.

We tend to justify our words or manner of speaking to others and to ourselves.  For example, some women have perfected the art of "soft and gentle" speech but their mouths are still spewing ugliness.  Just because unloving words are spoken quietly doesn't make them any more lovable.   Another particular weakness in many Christian women is found in those who use quiet speech as a powerful manipulative tool in the name of godly womanhood!   This type of speech is just as wrong as screaming and swearing.  In fact, it may be even more destructive than blatantly "wrong" speech because of it's hidden nature.  Immeasurable damage has been done to children and husbands in the name of godliness through the power of a controlling tongue, cloaked in manipulation.

There is a difference between being an influence and being manipulative.   The American Heritage Dictionary defines influence as "a power indirectly or intangibly affecting a person or course of events."  Manipulation is described as "shrewd or devious management, especially for one's own advantage."  Manipulation uses influence deviously to accomplish it's own purposes.  While someone who is manipulative may say they are attempting to inspire righteousness, the secret motivation of the heart is selfish.  The reason manipulation is always selfish is because righteousness comes ONLY out of an individual's personal relationship with God, not out of one person's control over another.  We can attempt to influence our families to turn to God so He can change them however HE wants, but He is the one who remains in control at all times.  When we start trying to influence someone to submit to our point of view about righteousness or anything else, we are being either openly controlling or secretly manipulative. 

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