“14 Then Jesus called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: 15 there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”
17 When Jesus had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked Him about the parable. 18 He said to them, “So, are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, 19 since it enters not the heart but the stomach and goes out into the sewer?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) 20 And He said, “It is what comes out of a person that defiles. 21 For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22 adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, pride, folly. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person” Mark 7:14-23.
Jesus knows each us through and through. This means that all people and races are equal in the sight of God. For many people, this is not something they want to hear. Yet many believe that the physical world is bad and the spiritual world is good. But Jesus is saying something different here. He is not saying that external, physical things are always bad or irrelevant, and that internal and spiritual things are always good. Sometimes our deepest feelings, the things of our heart, can lead us to things other than to happiness and fulfillment. Just as good and external actions can sometimes lead us to fulfilling happiness. Jesus does not want us to isolate one part of our human make-up and just trust our truest inner feelings.
Jesus is offering us all a cure for all the problems of our heart, and the solution is the Kingdom of God! You see, what the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus brought to all people, was a new completion, a new fulfillment of the Old Testament Scriptures, the whole covenant with Israel.
Jesus is saying here, and certainly in His entire life, that the Jewish Scriptures were never intended to be timeless codes of behavior, but as the story which leads to Jesus. The entire Scriptures are the Word of God, so all of the Bible is relevant. But all Scripture has a deeper truth to which they point, and all Scripture points to Jesus Christ! With Jesus and in Jesus everything is now different — and forever!
As Christians, it is our responsibility to figure out how everything is now different for each of us because of Christ!
So today in prayer consider how different your life must be because of Jesus Christ. Everything in our life must point to Jesus!
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.
From the Bible:
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, you are a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” 2 Corinthians 5:17.
“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” Galatians 2:20.
“Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert” Isaiah 43:18-19.
“And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God” Ezekiel 11:19-20.
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