He Blesses People Out Loud and Boils the Whole Time

The mouth got sorted about four years ago and nothing else did.

He stopped cursing people out. He stopped saying the thing that ends a conversation. When somebody cuts him off in traffic he says something short and warm about that person's day, out loud, in the car, and he means it in the sense that he has decided to say it.

People have noticed. Two men have told him he has changed and both of them were sincere and both of them were describing something real, because the mouth is real and it did change.

Inside, nothing moved.

The same heat arrives at the same speed. It is the exact same feeling it was five years ago, arriving in a body that now says something pleasant while it is happening, and the arrangement is so smooth by now that he can do both at once without effort.

And what has started to worry him is not hypocrisy. It is that the clean version got him praised, and being praised for it has made it harder to say out loud that the other half never happened.

James names the two coming out of one place

There is a sentence in James about a mouth, and the objection he raises is about a source rather than about a performance.

Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. (James 3:10, King James Version)

Out of the same mouth.

He is not primarily complaining about the cursing. He is pointing at one opening producing two different things and saying that arrangement is wrong.

And the next verse makes the point with water.

Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? (James 3:11)

A fountain is a source. Not a tap, not a filter, a source.

Which means the passage is not asking anybody to install better filtering. It is asking a question about what is underneath, and a man who has spent four years on the filter has been working, well and sincerely, on the wrong end of the pipe.

You are not being asked for better filtering. James 3 asks about the fountain rather than the outlet, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes an old question about water reach a man who has fixed his mouth.

God says which instrument He reads

There is a line in Samuel about what gets looked at, and it is said to correct somebody who was reading the other one.

For the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart. (1 Samuel 16:7)

Man looketh on the outward appearance.

Two men told him he had changed. They were reading the instrument they have access to, and they read it correctly, and the reading was accurate as far as the instrument goes.

God is described as reading a different one, which means the praise was not wrong and it was also not the whole assessment, and a man can hold both of those at once.

You are read by somebody who is not looking at the part that got praised. 1 Samuel 16 names both instruments and says which one He uses, and it is His Spirit who makes an old correction land without turning four years of work into nothing.

Jesus said which one gets cleaned first

There is a sentence in Matthew where He gives an order of operations, and He is talking to people who were doing this well.

Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. (Matthew 23:26)

Cleanse first that which is within.

He is not saying the outside does not matter. The end of the sentence keeps it: that the outside of them may be clean also.

He is saying there is an order, and that the order runs inside to outside, and that doing it the other way round produces something that looks finished and is not.

That is not an accusation aimed at a man who did the outside first. Most people do. It is a description of what is left after.

You are not finished and you are not a fraud either. Matthew 23 puts the order in and keeps the outside in the sentence, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes an old instruction sound like a next step rather than a verdict.

The instruction for the inside is not a technique

Here is where this stops being about effort, and it is the only useful part.

A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 36:26)

Read who does the verbs. Give. Put. Take away. Give.

Nobody is told to change their own inside in that verse, and there is a reason for that. A man can change what a mouth does by deciding to, and he proved it over four years. He cannot change what arrives at the same speed by the same method, and the fact that the first method worked so well is exactly what makes this frustrating.

You are not going to get the inside by the method that got the mouth. Ezekiel 36 puts every verb on God's side, and it is His Spirit, named in that same sentence as what gets put in, who does it.

And the fruit is grown rather than performed

There is a list in Galatians and it is called fruit for a reason.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance. (Galatians 5:22-23)

Fruit is what a plant produces because of what it is, without deciding to.

That is the difference between what happened to the mouth and what has not happened underneath. One was manufactured, well and honestly, by a man with real discipline. The other is described as grown.

And nothing on that list can be produced the first way, which is why four years of the first way has not touched it.

You are waiting on something grown rather than manufactured. Galatians 5 calls it fruit and names whose it is, and it is the Holy Spirit who is the one it grows on.