“The heart of the righteous studies how to answer, but the mouth of the wicked pours forth evil.” (Proverb 15:28)

Everything has a beginning…a foundation from which to proceed.

This Proverb tells us that what happens in the heart is the beginning to what we do and what we say. The heart is the human soul. It is the “control center”, if you will, of all people since our soul is the part of us that thinks, decides and experiences emotions.

The writer of this Proverb tells us that the “the mouth of the wicked pours forth evil.”

This is because evil is the fruit produced by a wicked heart. Jesus spoke about this:

“…every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.” (Matthew 7:17-18)

So, a person with a wicked heart…in other words, a lost person, will pour out evil. Even “good things” they do and say will have wicked and/or selfish motives because their foundation is evil as they belong to their “father the devil”.

“You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.” (John 8:34)

In this Proverb the mouth of the wicked which pours forth evil is contrasted with truth that “the heart of the righteous studies how to answer” (Proverb 15:28a).

When we are born again the Lord makes us “new creations” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Christians are TOTALLY new…and righteous in Christ…but we REMEMBER how to live like we did when we were lost and wicked.

However, the DESIGN of this new creation is that we function differently than we did when we were lost. Christians are DIFFERENT in this lost world.
Instead of pouring out evil from our hearts (which are being renewed to be like the heart of Jesus), we are to take the time to live like this: “the heart of the righteous studies how to answer” (Proverb 15:28a). We must study how we will answer, or we will respond like a lost person does.

Let’s ask the Lord to teach us how we can stop REACTING to people and circumstances outside ourselves and, instead, SUBMIT to Him our thoughts, feelings and potential decisions about these things.

Let’s ask the Lord to teach us how to “STUDY how to answer” in these times – especially in the times that cause our emotions to soar.

Then, let’s answer in the ways HE directs us to answer.

“Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” (2 Corinthians 3:17)

We Christians are no longer in involuntary bondage to the things of the world. The Spirit of God has made us free. Let’s live as free as we are.

Let’s FREELY choose to allow Jesus, the Counselor (Isaiah 9:6), to guide us and direct our answers as we RESPOND in Christ to what satan uses some people and circumstances in his attempts to regain control of us.

Freedom in Christ. What a wonderful thing!