A Defiled Heart

 

 Mk 7:14-23

 It's What's Inside that Defiles

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] 

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.)

²⁰ He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. ²¹ For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, ²² adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. ²³ All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”

Jesus teaches us that our thoughts are what sully us, defile us.  We often think that these are just passing, harmless phenomena, but a constant diet of them can eventually become evident in out speech and in our actions. It's best to nip these random thoughts in the bud and clean up our minds s soon as possible and thus clean up our actions and our lives.

Bro. Rene

Dear Jesus, help me to clean up my act by cleaning up my mind. Amen.