“A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” — Luke 6:45 NIV

A man can suppress his actions and hide his real self for awhile but eventually what’s harbored in his heart will surface and be made known through his words. Like judging a tree by its fruit, we can judge a person’s character by their conversations and decide what our relationship with them should look like.

However, don’t get hung up on assessing everybody’s character by evaluating their words, that’s not the part of this verse that’s most important. What is important is that you and I fill our hearts with things that are good so only good things come out in our conversations. We want to be more concerned about our own good character than we are about identifying another’s evil character.

We’ll fill our hearts with what’s good when we think about what’s good, which is the point of Philippians 4:8 when it says think on that which is true, just, honest, and pure. We also fill our hearts with good when we do good, as in aiming to only do the right thing.