Treasures of the heart

"For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks."
Luke 6:43-45

This is a passage that pretty much anybody who is saved has heard, quoted, maybe memorized or studied. It's "christianese" to most of us, but let's look at something usually overlooked, especially in light of the theme on my blog lately of the words we speak and the power of them. Much of what I'm going to present should be familiar passages of Scripture, but presented from angles you might not have taken time to consider. Deal?

When reading and studying Scripture it's extremely important to keep context in mind, and it's highly recommended that the Sermon on the Mount in either Matthew 5-7 or Luke 6, is something believers study and meditate on. In fact, there's plenty of gold to unpack in the end of this chapter of Luke, and things are in the order they are in because there's a correlation between each thought, and the Holy Spirit saw to it that our writings are the way they are--and written in the order they are--for a reason.

I don't think many of you need to be told or have explained what a treasure is. The Word says elsewhere that where your treasure is, there your heart is also (Matt 6:21). If your treasure is valuable to you, its protected. Strong's Concordance says of treasure, that this is the place in which good and precious things are collected and laid up. Is it not true that many people keep valuables in things like chests and safes, hidden somewhere that can't be reached easily by just anybody except the persons entrusted with it? In fact, safes are made out of such strong metals and materials, that even if a house burns down, whatever is in those safes is still protected and you still can't hardly break into them to get what's inside! That's why they call them 'safes', eh. Then it's no secret as to why Solomon said the following:

"My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart. For they are life to those who find them, and healing to all their flesh. Keep [guard] your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you." Proverbs 4:20-24, emphasis mine. Again remember how these passages deal with the tongue bringing forth what's in the heart. Guard your treasure. What are you saying?

Ephesians 5:18-20 states: Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The implications are clear: When we're filled with the Spirit, we're saying something. We're singing something. There's something different about our hearts and words. There's rivers of living water that flow out of us (John 7:37-39). It's incredibly obvious that words and speaking are one of the tell-tale signs of this. Blessing and cursing cannot be coming out of the same overflow (James 3:10), anymore than fig trees don't bear thorns, and vice versa.

Look at how the Amplified Bible translates verse 45 of our text (emphasis mine):

"The upright (honorable, intrinsically good) man out of the good treasure [stored] in his heart produces what is upright (honorable and intrinsically good), and the evil man out of the evil storehouse brings forth that which is depraved (wicked and intrinsically evil); for out of the abundance (overflow) of the heart his mouth speaks."

What are you storing up in the treasure of your heart?

I've said before in my posts, but if you sit and watch hours of TV a day or play video games constantly and spend only 15 minutes in the Word, you're not in a healthy place as far as your spiritual inner man is concerned. The stuff you feed your heart is what will be there to come out of your mouth. You can't speak to mountains and tell them to move if you've got nothing in there to say. You are what you eat. Everything we watch, read, spend our time doing--is feeding our spirits in some way, whether good or bad. "Harmless" things--even if not outright sinful--if they aren't things that produce growth in our spiritual lives, then they are useless foods. Junk food in the natural doesn't prepare us for extensive muscle use, neither does spiritual junk food prepare our use of spiritual muscle during fiery trials and tribulations. Jesus Himself said anyone not working for Him is working against Him. I'm not against TV and movie watching in and of itself--I'm against how much time people spend doing these things. Most Christians don't want to admit it, but Hollywood and Nashville are preaching to them more than the Lord is, and these things filter their understanding of spiritual things. I know it's impossible to chart every single thing we watch, talk about, do, read and make sure none of it is wasteful, but trying to live by that standard is definitely better than not bothering to at all--for the sake of your heart.

I know I'm sounding legalistic to some readers. But I've written before on how discipline is needed in the Christian life, but it's not the same thing as legalism. I read some of your blogs, Facebooks, MySpace sites and just plain talk to some of you who will be reading this, and I cringe at some of things so many believers are comfortable participating in!--in any of the cultures I have set my foot in. As a sidenote, can you really picture the disciples with Jesus in the boat or laying around a camp fire, and discussing the latest episode of The Office that was on the night before? Or if anybody had downloaded the newest Spiderman movie illegally on the internet? I'm not preaching against those idols in particular, it's up to you to decide if idols in your life are idols that need to be destroyed.

But it's also up to you how much you want to hear the voice of God clearly in your life and have more of the Scriptures come up from inside your spirit more often and more deeply, then I guarantee you--I say from experience--the junk needs to be cut out! It dulls you. Too many Christians are insensitive to the Holy Spirit because they're too desensitized by the junk and dope of this world. Unblock and unclog the things in your life/spirit/heart/soul/[whatever the spot is exactly]--and remove the things that are in the way and polluting your vessel. Yes, God uses impure people to accomplish His will. Yes, God 'uses us in spite of us', but imagine how much more He could have His way if we were giving ourselves more to His purposes than our own vain pursuits and entertainments? That is not a rhetorical question, by the way!



What are you feeding your tree?
The context of Luke 6:43-45, is trees. Bad trees don't bear good fruit. Dare I say it this way; dirty hearts don't produce wholesome speech either. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. You and I are in charge of what is in our hearts to be able to overflow out of our mouths.

A tree needs several things in order to grow and produce fruit. If you water it too much and/or only give it water, then it will get waterlogged and die. If you don't give it any, and it only gets heat and sunlight, it will die also. Sometimes I get asked how "I know so much about the Bible." It doesn't show on my blog, but in person I've been told I can just know where Scripture passages are found so readily, and what certain verses say--it's been commented to me that my preaching/teachings are always well thought-out and well-prepared. But the thing is, I'm extemporaneous, and spontaneous. I prepare a few notes, merely skeletal outline points and only to serve as an anchor to keep myself on some topic, but much of what I teach and preach comes to me on the spot. I'd say 20% prep and 80% ''go with the flow when it comes up" is how I do it.

Do you want let in on a little secret on how you can do it too? Reading the Word and speaking in tongues. Not one over the other, and not one without the other. It has to do with what I spend my time storing in my heart and spirit, and then what's there to pull out of it. Also, certain topics are naturally an overflow to different people based on passion and studying and meditating on them more than others.

First, reading the Bible regularly. I will not specify an amount because we all have different reading levels and schedules, but it has to be a daily occurance of quality time doing it. Not bites or snacks---but meals. It's true that an apple a day keeps the doctor away--but not if you only eat apples, and only eat one a day!

Second, a whole lot of speaking and praying in tongues. Those readers who do this know from experience also know just how much this private prayer language helps 'unpack' the revelation into the things of God and the Word that you're storing in your heart as a result of reading the Bible. Like with the tree, sunlight alone will not produce much fruit, and water alone will not produce fruit either, but will overdo it and kill the thing. Similarly, feeding and storing in your heart the Word of God, is like placing the minerals and such in the soil for that plant to feed off of. The roots are not just feeding off of the water, but also from the minerals in that soil. The Word of God is like precious stones. Jesus our Saviour is called the rock (1 Cor 10:4)--which is a type of stone, and He is the Word (John 1:1-5). A rock is also solid, serving as a foundation for a building--so notice the very next few verses in Luke 6 have to do with building on a dwelling place on a solid foundation so the storm doesn't destroy the house that was built (verses 46-49). Likewise the tree needs its roots deep in the soil to withstand the sun's heat and fiery trials of life.

You need to store the treasures of the Word of God in the soil of your heart, and the tongue praying acts like the water (symbolic of the Holy Spirit in our lives), and from constant and continual use and practice--at your own speed and your own initiative--brings this stuff out of the treasures of the heart, for good usage and fruit, the way the tree's roots will draw its nourishment out of the soil, not the water alone.

I know about half of those reading don't like any talk on tongues and for some sad reason a large portion of the Church removes from their Christian experience tongues and prophesying and the gifts of the Spirit that involve miraculous speaking, and teaching others the same, but this is the most effective way to gain insight into the Word of God for our lives. The Holy Spirit, who wrote the Bible, who is living in you, bringing it to life in your spirit. The prayer done with your spirit gets answered in your spirit. Speaking is directly involved in the unpacking of what's stored in that treasure, as we allow Him to store those things in our treasure chest (heart).

I've noticed that reading and confessing the Word of God and praying in the Spirit are both vital to the Christian walk. People who only speak in tongues and aren't in regular Bible study other than their token verses for positive confession, are usually flakes. The ones who only read the Bible (I know I'm going to be misquoted and misunderstood...) tend to back away or have alternative explanations for matters of the Spirit, and are generally (but not as a rule) more intellectual in their approach to the Scriptures. That's my opinion anyway. The law kills and Spirit gives life. I kinda steer clear of both flakes and intellectuals. There's a middle that I have no idea if I am located in (but hope so!), and both are vital spiritual disciplines that work off of each other in our lives.

Tongue praying brings to life the Word of God in our spirits in a faster way than intellectual understanding does, hence why your understanding/mind is unfruitful (1 Cor 14:14) when you pray this way, but your spirit is edified (1 Cor 14:4) when you pray in the Holy Spirit. Contrary to how a bad interpretation of this text would have you believe, your mind not being fruitful is not indicative of this practice being bad. It's just people who don't understand the benefits of praying in tongues usually accidentally come to this conclusion. However, Paul said in this text he'd do BOTH praying and singing with understanding and with his spirit (v 15), not one to the exclusion of the other.

For computer experts reading: it's like downloading zip files to your computer, and then it's on your hard drive needing to be unpackaged. Zip files are faster to download than the whole file in its ''unzipped" state. The mental intelect alone cannot handle the revelation God desires to give us for our lives, hence a personal edification tool like the gift of tongues for individual use. Trying to understand the things of the Spirit using our own intelect alone, is like trying to unload an atomic bomb inside a soup can. It just can't happen, so from praying in the Holy Spirit, God brings us up to His level to communicate things to us, in our spirits, and then the interpretation will be made to our minds when whatever He's downloading to our spirits is completed.

For those who've never spoken in tongues, and don't want to or think it's unnecessary and you're skimming this part because you don't think it applies to you let me just point out that the people who teach and preach it's not necessary or that it's demonic to do so, tend to reach that conclusion out of lack of experience doing it. It's their lack of experience ultimately that leads them to this conclusion and interpret the Scriptures through that bias. Can anyone--"tongue talker" or not--really disagree with that observation? I find it's as simple as that. You never hear tongue speakers and charismatics teach it's not for today--why? Because they know better from experience as well as the Word!

If you're one who as of yet is inexperienced and are offended and resentful when it's implied you're missing out on this AWESOME experience--the only thing I can compare this to is like when you suddenly "get something" in the Word or from God directly and you just know that you know that you know that you now know something from God and not your own understanding. And the Scriptures back it up, and don't contradict it. Well, with regular tongue praying--multiply that "getting it" experience exponentially! Oh if the whole Church would do this!! God is not withholding it and giving it only to some and skipping others--this is a tool that's vital to understanding spiritual matters, and God does not give it to some and not others. It's something all who want it can have. Lack of proper understanding is what inhibits many believers from seeking it.

I can totally understand Paul when he said "I wish you all spoke in tongues" (1 Cor 14:5) to the believers at Corinth. It wasn't like his gift of singleness that He saw the benefits of and wished other people could share but not all would. This man was not one of the original disciples that got to interact with Jesus face to face. This was a man who was more zealous for studying the Torah than many others, and spoke in tongues more than the Corinthians (1 Cor 14:8) and look at the revelation he had from those two components--he wrote stuff that we canonized and put in the Bible! I don't know about you, but I see totally how Bible Study and tongue praying are vital--especially if you're called to teach anything to others in the Body, you best be doing both, not one over the other.

Bible reading provides the boundaries and the minerals for those tongues you're praying out without your own understanding. Tongues waters and unpackages those treasures in the soil of your heart. To repeat and summarize: Bible reading & study, and consistent tongue praying work off of each other.



I know that I now have tags beneath my entries enabling you to click on key words to read other posts like this, but if you are in spiritually dying need of more food for thought on these subjects, read the following blog entries in particular (or to refresh your memory):

The Ministry of the Holy Spirit
Song of Solomon and praying in tongues (which I will update soon in order to deal with new insights and understanding I have into that text since originally posting it three years ago).
How Do We Grow In Faith?
On Being "Drunk in the Spirit"

Blessings.