Matthew 12:34

“Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”

Jesus can be very firm and strict especially if He notices hypocrisy is at work. To Jesus, a man cannot be greater than his inner life and the outward manifestations are only the external display of an internal reality. Jesus called them “brood of vipers” because they were saturated with active venom in their spirits and this was confirmed by their outward behavior.

A good man is the man whose inner life is saturated with goodness. Once your inner life is full of Jesus, there is no way that the outer life will not conform. The words we speak, for example, can only be controlled up to a point, before they begin to reflect the true inner life. Pretense cannot be sustained for long because the inner life is the control tower of behavior. Words spoken softly in one context should not give way to words spoken in harshness and rudeness in another context, if the inner life were correct. We need an abundance of God in our innermost being. We need an overflow of the Holy Spirit on the inside so that everything we do will flow from that inner source. Saturate the inner life with Jesus and all the outer life will be good. The secret to the spiritual life is in the saturation of the inner life with God.

“O God, saturate me afresh with Jesus. Saturate me, O God. I hate pretense and I cannot stand to display anything but Your fullness. O God, saturate my spirit with Your presence. This is my greatest lifelong need and I ask this desperately today, in Jesus name.”