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Upcoming Sermons & Devotional Message
September Sermons 2026
9-20- OCC Kickoff Sunday
Yom Kippur begins
9-27- Model Sacrificial Stewardship
Deuteronomy 14:22-23 2 Corinthians 8:3-4
Devotional Message : These will change 1-2 times a week. Stop by often to read the new message.
Some Thoughts on the Human Heart
I’m a collector of homespun wisdom. We often capture such wisdom in short, pithy phrases that are loaded with truth. Phrases like: “There’s never a lot of traffic on the high road.” “All tea bags look alike until you put them in hot water.” “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.” “Comparison is the thief of joy.” And “Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.”
One of my favorite axioms is: “What’s down in the well, comes up in the bucket.” Anyone who has ever lived on well water knows the truth of this phrase. If the well is clean, the water tastes refreshing and good. But if anything impure fouls the well, the water tastes awful.
The human heart is a well—and what’s down in the well will often come up in our words and actions. Jesus speaks of this truth in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 7:
“For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.” (Mark 7:21-22)
Jesus taught it’s not what goes into our mouths that makes us unclean, but what’s in our hearts.
Many think their hearts are good no matter where their feet have gone, or what their hands have done. Deep inside is a little part that’s pure, and that’s what God sees—they hope.
But that’s not what the Bible teaches. According to Jesus, the heart is the source of all our sins: sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.
The heart is not a holy place, but a sin-factory that never shuts down. The prophet Jeremiah said,
“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.” (Jeremiah 17:9)
The human heart manufactures every abomination under heaven. What’s down in the well comes up in the bucket.
This is the human condition, and the reason we need to be saved. Since our hearts are wicked and deceitful, everyone needs a new heart. Which God promises us:
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26)
Ask God to give you a new heart, my friends!
Bishop Jeff Greenway