"For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned" (Mat 12:37 NIV).
There was a man named Ruben, known around his barangay for his quiet demeanor during community meetings. He rarely spoke, so everyone assumed he was patient and gentle. One afternoon, during a heated basketball league dispute at the covered court, Ruben exploded with words that shocked everyone—bitter, cutting, cruel remarks that seemed to come from nowhere. The neighbors whispered, “That didn’t sound like him.” But the truth was, it sounded exactly like him. The outburst simply revealed what years of hidden resentment had been storing up inside. The fruit hanging from his lips that day merely told everyone what kind of tree had been growing all along.
Words are not just sounds we toss into the air. They are more like an X-ray machine our barangay health workers use, letting us peer beneath the skin and see the actual condition of the bones underneath. Jesus made this point powerfully when the Pharisees accused Him of driving out demons by the power of Beelzebul. Their accusation was not a simple misunderstanding. It was a twisted interpretation flowing from a twisted heart, like a corrupted file producing garbled output on a computer screen. A good eye sees light and calls it light, but a diseased eye calls the sunrise darkness. Their words about Jesus did not reveal anything true about Him. They revealed everything true about themselves. Whatever fills the tank will eventually spill out when the container gets bumped.
What is stored inside the heart cannot stay hidden forever. It is like a deep well that will, given enough time, send a bucket to the surface with whatever lies at the bottom. Jesus used the picture of a tree producing fruit according to its kind. A banana trunk will never produce papaya, no matter how long you wait. A good treasure in the heart brings out good things, and an evil treasure brings out evil things. The mouth is a servant, not a master. It simply delivers to the doorstep whatever the heart has been stockpiling in the warehouse.
Since our words act as a diagnostic tool—like a blood test that catches a disease long before symptoms appear—we need to watch what we say with serious attention. Your sudden harsh comment during a family lunch, that sarcastic reply to your spouse, the gossipy remark shared over coffee with a friend—these are not random accidents. They are the first indication of a spiritual sickness forming deep inside, visible long before it manifests in destructive behavior. As the old preacher Charles Spurgeon once noted, the tongue is the index of the heart, showing plainly what spirit resides within. A small leak in a rice cooker’s gasket will eventually lead to a completely ruined pot of rice. Small words work the same way.
Change does not start at the mouth. No fisherman in his right mind scrubs the river downstream while a dead animal rots upstream at the source. He walks up to the spring and deals with the contamination there. We often try to clean up our speech by sheer willpower—biting our tongues, counting to ten, or walking away from arguments. Those are temporary patches on a bursting dam. Clean the spring, and the stream runs clean naturally without you having to filter every drop. King David did not pray for a mouth guard. He prayed, “Create in me a clean heart, O God.” He knew the real battlefield was deeper. Trying to clean your words without cleaning your heart is like repainting a house infested with termites. The outside looks good for a week, but the structure keeps rotting.
We will give an account for every careless word, Jesus warns. That thought should sober us like the sudden wail of an ambulance siren cutting through a noisy street. When ugly words come pouring out of me, I will stop blaming circumstances—my stressful boss, my nagging relative, the traffic, the disrespectful cashier. I will bring the ugliness straight to the Lord and say, “Search me and know my heart; see if there is any offensive way in me.” I will fill my heart deliberately with the things of Christ—His Word read slowly, His presence sought sincerely, His perspective adopted humbly—so that what overflows from my lips is genuinely worth hearing, like fresh buko juice poured on a scorching day, refreshing everyone who tastes it.
