Hearts and words

He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.  

– Mark 7.6

Jesus repeated here the words of the prophet Isaiah when He said of the religious leaders, who He called hypocrites, ‘the people honour me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.’

What we say and what we do do not always match up. The hypocrites Jesus spoke about did a good job of talking about God and amening and praising the Lord and saying hallelujah. They knew all the right things to say and when to say them. They had all the religious words perfect.

Sounds like a lot of people today. A lot of church people do the amens and the praise the Lords and the hallelujahs with gusto. We can talk the religious talk with the best of them.

But sometimes all those words are meaningless because the heart behind them is far from the Lord. To say one thing and have a different heart is the epitome of hypocrisy. It is a tragedy when God’s people say all the right stuff but their wicked hearts show through because of what they actually do. Our choices reflect our heart and often the things we choose to do. We can’t afford to live lives of hypocrisy because they destroy anything we might say about our Lord.

We need to talk the walk but we also need to walk the talk – it takes both.