The number one way to understand a person
There are many ways to ascertain a person’s life.
Were they brought up in a rural, suburban or urban area? Did they grow up in public housing or a single family home? Did they attend private or public schools? Go on to college or trade school or gain on-the-job experience right after high school? What kind of family life were they raised in: lots of siblings, only child, broken home or intact nuclear family?
We try to understand a person by their upbringing, education, family background, preferences, career pursuits, associations and so on. These are valid observances among others that would constitute an identity of someone’s makeup.
The roles and responsibilities an individual have also contributes to “knowing” someone.
While it is certainly true that actions speak louder than words – “show me your faith and I’ll show you my deeds” (James 2:18) and “by their Fruit you shall know them” (Matt 7:16-20) – there is one absolute way to know or understand a person.
The Bible (Luke 6:45 and Matt 12:35) says, “what comes out of a man’s mouth is what is in his heart.”
What is in your heart is the kind of a person you really are, so whatever a person speaks and how they say it is the way to understand who they realistically are. You speak the condition of your heart. What and how you say things reveal the person you are.
Jesus said if you confess me (speak) before men, I will confess you before the Father (Matt 10:32). In your confession you are speaking or revealing the condition of your heart, which is that commitment or faith in Christ.
What do Salvation (Romans 10:10) and Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit (Matt 12:31-32) have in common? They both must be spoken, or verbalized. What you confess is the condition of your heart. It’s purposeful and conscious: You speak the condition of your heart.
So, when someone speaks of their Faith in Christ, what they are doing is exposing the truth of their status as a person. They are already believers and are now expressing that by speaking or confessing it. Many people in Christian circles have wondered about the Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, but according to the words of Christ, it must be spoken.
You must release outwardly the truth, condition or state of being. The condition of their heart is unforgivable because they are unchangeable. Unrecoverable not because they can’t be forgiven but because they won’t come to Christ and become forgiven. So, if they won’t ask for forgiveness, he can’t give it. They deliberately, knowingly speak, or blaspheme their unchangeable, unrepentant, therefore unrecoverable and then unforgivable heart condition.
Matt 15:18-20A NIV further informs, “v18 but the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart and these defile them. V19: for out of the heart come evil thoughts- murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander, V20a. These are what defile a person.
While it is true that an honest evaluation of someone’s character can be comprehended by the life that they live. The more noticeable and informative quality is what they speak. What someone says speaks volumes (pun intended) about the type of person they really are.
Simply and contextually, listen to a person’s conversations. The yellow flag warning is to not over analyze and become hyper critical as speech codes may differ among diverse demographics. Yet you can more than glean insight by the quantity of what someone talks about and the priority of their speech.
What is important to them generally manifests into their discussions. Listen to tone, inflection, emotion which divulges quality, or again, priority.
How much is referenced pertaining to children, family, career, sports, politics, faith, church and so on?
Whose conversations do you gravitate towards? What topics do you find most interesting? What dominates your banter and discussions?
If you take time to self-examine that part of your life, you would most likely have a self-discovery moment about the condition of your own heart.
Blessings.