Hi there, and welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Our reading, titled A Heart for Christ, was written by Karen Huang.

As long as you keep your mouth closed, I told myself, you won't be doing anything wrong.

I'd been outwardly holding back my anger toward a colleague after misinterpreting things she'd said.

Since we had to see each other every day, I decided to limit communication to only what was necessary and retaliate with my silent treatment. How could a quiet demeanor be

wrong? In Matthew 15, Jesus said that sin begins in the heart. My silence may have fooled people

into thinking all was well, but it wasn't fooling God. He knew I was hiding a heart filled with anger. I was like the

Pharisees who honored God with their lips, but their hearts were far from him. Even though my

outward appearance didn't show my true feelings, the bitterness was festering inside me. The joy and

closeness I'd always felt with my Heavenly Father were gone.

Nurturing and hiding sin does that. By God's grace, I told my colleague how I was feeling and apologized.

She graciously forgave me, and eventually we became good friends.

Out of the heart come evil thoughts, Jesus says.

The state of our heart matters because evil residing there can overflow into our lives.

Both our exterior and interior matter.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Matthew chapter 15, verses 7 through 20.

You hypocrites, Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you.

These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

They worship me in vain.

Their teachings are merely human rules.

Jesus called the crowd to him and said,

Listen and understand.

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