"And He called the people to Him again and said to them, 'Hear me, all of you, and understand: There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.' And when he had entered the house and left the people, His disciples asked Him about the parable. And he said to them, 'Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from the outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?' And He said, 'What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person'" Mark 7:14-22.
Man, I wish I would have known this passage growing up when I was arguing with my parents about going to see a PG-13 or R rated movie. I could have had some really solid convincing material.
I think the passage says many things. One, it says we control how things affect us- do they go straight to our hearts and feed our sinful desire to do a certain thing- are we envious at our core and seeing those people makes us explode? Do I crave compliments to feed my pride? "For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks." Do we realize the sins, the emotions, the problems originate in our ugly hearts?
It never occurred to me, no one ever told me I don't think, that the hardest battle I will fight as a Christian is against myself. By nature I'm inclined towards evil. I like doing bad things, I like getting a little ahead in life by telling a mistruth and stepping over someone for my gain. I think I'm pretty special and I have my life very well put-together, thank you. If I just stay away from certain bad influences and people that are terrible anyway, I'll have it made. I can fool people into thinking I'm great.
Wait, step back. That's not what the Christian life is about? Really? Our world sure thinks it is. How sad we as Christians often fight harder to be the people our world dictates as Christian and we don't actually fight to be 'Christ-like'. I'm reading through the Gospels right now and Jesus is very different than our world thinks. He's not quite as nice as I've always pictured Him. He says something interesting earlier in Mark 7, "This people honors me with their lips but their heart is far from me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men."
God don't like ugly. He doesn't like evil, envy, pride or anything else on that list either. Did you see foolishness on there? I think wasting time doing unimportant things falls into that category. ouch, I know. We spend so much time on the things of man, when will we learn? As Americans we work so hard on character, appearances, self-image- when will we work on God-image and stop working on building up ourselves?
Do we realize all those times when we think God is working against us to make our lives miserable and we resent Him for it it's because He is working against us? That's right. He's working against our nature, our very being trying to make us more like Him. If we're trying to be gold, we must let the refiner work the process- and the process hurts, I'll testify.
Knock me down Jesus and build me back up like you.
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