By Joshua L. Mullins

As in water face reflects face, so a man’s heart reveals the man.

—Proverbs 27:19

Today I want us to look carefully at the principle that what is inside a man will eventually come out. Proverbs 27:19 tells us that a man’s heart reveals the man, just as water reflects a face. In the New Testament, the word for “heart” is the Greek word kardia. It does not refer merely to the physical organ. Kardia is the center of a person’s inner life—the seat of his thoughts, his will, his emotions, and his deepest motivations. It is the control center of the inner man. Whatever has taken residence in the kardia will ultimately find its way out through the mouth, through the attitudes, and through the life.

Jesus made this unmistakably clear in Matthew 15. After confronting the Pharisees about their traditions, He said, “Those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies” (Matthew 15:18–19). The word “proceed” carries the idea of something moving out from its source. The mouth is simply the exit ramp. The real issue is what has been allowed to dwell in the kardia. If the heart is full of the life of God, that life will come out. If the heart is full of something else, that something else will come out as well.

We see the positive side of this principle on the road to Emmaus. As the risen Christ walked with those two disciples and opened the Scriptures to them, their hearts burned within them (Luke 24:32). That burning was not just an emotional reaction. It was the living Word of God igniting the kardia. When the heart is touched by the risen Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit, something begins to happen on the inside that cannot stay hidden forever.

This is exactly what we see in Acts 4:31. After the believers had prayed, “the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness.” The word “shaken” is the Greek word saleuō. It comes from the word salos, which describes the surge and swell of the sea. Saleuō means to agitate, to rock, to move violently from its foundations. This was not a gentle stirring. The place itself was agitated by the presence of God. The word for “filled” is from plēthō (or pimplēmi), which means to be filled to capacity, to be completely controlled and saturated. They were not half-filled. They were filled full, and what was inside them came out in bold speech.

Notice the order. The inner working of the Spirit came first. They prayed. They were filled. Then the evidence appeared—the place was shaken and they spoke the Word with boldness. Some people say, “I praise God inwardly.” But if the kardia is truly full of praise and full of the Holy Spirit, that fullness will not remain locked inside. What is inside will come out. The early believers did not settle for being “there in spirit.” They assembled together in body. They prayed with urgency. They were filled with the Spirit. And the result was a divine shaking and a release of power.

The baptism in the Holy Spirit is a subsequent work that releases the dunamis of God—explosive supernatural power—into the life of the believer. That power is not given so we can remain formal, dry, and restrained. It is given to loose us, to fill us, and to cause what is inside to come out in praise, in bold proclamation, and in the demonstration of the Spirit. People are tired of imitations. They want reality. They want to encounter men and women whose hearts have been so filled with the risen Christ and with the power of the Holy Spirit that the evidence cannot be contained.

Friend, what is inside you will come out. If the kardia has been touched by the living Christ and filled with the Holy Spirit, the overflow will shake atmospheres, ignite faith in others, and release the glory of God. That is the pattern we see in Scripture, and that is the pattern God still desires for His people today.