The Plague of the Heart

What’s the unfiltered version of you?

It’s not the version you show on Sunday mornings or when everything’s going right. It’s what comes out when life punches you in the gut. It’s what shows up in the story you tell yourself when things go wrong.

That story matters.
Because the truth is, what you think in your heart is shaping who you are. Proverbs 23:7 says, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” You can say “God loves me” all day long, but if your internal dialogue shifts the moment you hit difficulty—if deep down you’re believing, “God doesn’t really care about me”—then you’ve got a problem in your heart that needs to be addressed.

This isn’t a surface issue. It’s not just about changing your attitude or thinking more positive thoughts. What’s happening inside your heart is the core of everything. If your inner dialogue is full of fear, anger, bitterness, pride, self-hatred—whatever it is—those things don’t just sit there harmlessly. They flow out into your words, your actions, and your life.

Before any sin shows up in your behavior, it starts as a thought in your heart. Outbursts of anger, cycles of lust, addiction, fear—it all roots itself internally long before it plays out externally. If you leave it unchecked, you’re like a boat out on a stormy lake without a rudder. You’ll be tossed wherever the winds of life blow.

That’s why Scripture tells us to guard our hearts above all else (Proverbs 4:23). Jesus said, “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.” (Matthew 12:34). If you don’t get control of what’s happening inside, it will eventually come out, and it’ll defile everything around you.

This is why we can’t gloss over the issues inside. We can’t pretend they’re not there. We’ve got to face them head on. And we’ve got to let Jesus heal them.

There’s a powerful moment in 1 Kings 8, when Solomon dedicates the temple. He prays for a future day when Israel might turn away from God. He asks that if even one person recognizes “the plague of his own heart” and cries out toward the temple, that God would hear from heaven, forgive, and heal. Solomon understood something: the real issue isn’t just what’s happening around us. It’s what’s happening inside us. It’s the plague in the heart.

And nothing has changed. We’re in a generation pointing at the brokenness of the world, pointing at all the external problems, but we rarely look at the internal ones. We rarely stop and say, “God, it’s not just the world that’s broken. There’s brokenness in me.” Revival doesn’t start because we change the culture. It starts because hearts get right before God.

If we want God to move, it’s not going to happen by just wishing things were different or putting on a show of repentance. Joel 2 says, “Rend your hearts, not your garments.” God's after the real thing. He's not impressed by outward displays of sorrow. He wants the inside to change.

Maybe what's buried in your heart isn’t something you talk about. Maybe it’s unforgiveness that’s hardened into cynicism. Maybe it’s fear you’ve carried for years. Maybe it’s self-hatred that tells you you’re not worthy of being loved. Maybe it’s pride that's convinced you everyone else is the problem. If that’s there—and it’s never dealt with—it will shape your life for decades.

I've pastored long enough to know: if you let a wound stay buried, it doesn’t heal itself. It hardens. And people who get wounded in their 20s, if they don’t deal with it, often end up bitter in their 70s. That’s not what God wants for you. Freedom is available. Healing is real. Jesus knows exactly how to deal with what’s broken inside.

Maybe you’ve tried to forgive before and it feels like it never sticks. Maybe you've tried to move past the pain but it keeps surfacing. Sometimes that’s because it’s not just the event that hurt you—it’s the lie you believed about yourself because of it. That you deserved it. That you’re destined to keep getting hurt. Jesus wants to deal with the wound and the lie.

And let’s be clear: just because someone sinned against you doesn’t justify you living in sin. Our culture preaches that if you’ve been wronged, you have the right to stay angry, to stay bitter, to get revenge. That’s not the Gospel. Jesus was wronged in every way—and yet He forgave. We don’t get to reproduce the sin that hurt us. We don’t get to live as victims when Jesus already paid the price for our freedom.

It’s time to stop pointing outward and start looking inward.
The plague isn’t just out there. It’s in here.
And if we’ll humble ourselves and admit it, if we’ll bring our broken places to Jesus, He’ll meet us.
He’ll heal us.
He’ll deliver us.
He’ll set our hearts free.

Let’s not waste another year carrying what He already died to heal.