The Problem is INSIDE Our Own Hearts!

Mark 7:14-19 New International Version

14 Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. 15 Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.” [16] [a] 17 After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. 18 “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? 19 For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)

Wednesday - September 1

I grew up at the height of the D.A.R.E movement against drugs. As a kid, the message was “Drugs hurt you and if you do drugs you are a bad person.” Do you see the shift? If you refrained from doing drugs you were “good,” so be careful not to “get in with the wrong crowd.” Those are moral, not health, words. Righteousness, not just health, was at stake. But Jesus said that is false. Why? It gives us a false sense of security. We think being good equals righteousness in God’s eyes. Like the Jewish religious leaders, we start to act like we are good and righteous. We become proud and arrogant. We look down on others. We even reject God’s command to forgive others, thus making God’s word “void.” The problem is already INSIDE of us! It is our own hearts. Jesus came to save us from ourselves and make us truly righteous.