Dear friends, I want to share what God has laid on my heart for our community.

“Preparedness of your heart and mind.”

Matthew 15:18-20 expresses that which comes out of the mouth, proceeds from the heart.

In Proverbs 3:5 trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.

We read in Jeremiah 17:10 that I, the Lord, search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his deeds.

Out of your mouth can speak life or death. Words come from the heart, Proverbs 12:18, 18:21 and 26:28.

The Bible speaks in James 3 about learning the vastness of our words, and in Matthew 12:35-37,every idle word that comes out of our mouth, we will stand in judgment for.

From these few verses, you can see how God molded us and formed us. He created the heart. He created the way we use our heart. What we choose to do with it and the words that proceed from it is up to us. We can either tear down or build up. We can help restore or ridicule. A lot of times our words are simply just that, only “words”. But when we choose to let them flow from our heart, in a positive way, you can breathe life into dark places and love the unlovable.

Yes, there are times when we say things that our heart has a weaken place for, and negativity can slip out. But simply put, allow God to guard your heart and your mind and He will place the words that need to flow from you into others. It is such a simple concept but one of the most important ones for ourselves and to help teach others to do the same.

I want to encourage you to allow Him to flow freely through your mind and heart. Then sit back and watch Him work through you! Become the example of that person in which you want to see in others around you.

Guest columnist Amanda Ackerman is a women’s ministry leader and speaker from Luverne.