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Mark 7:15-23 (NIV)
15 Nothing outside a man can make him ‘unclean’ by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him ‘unclean.’ 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 man from the outside can make him ‘unclean’? 19 For it doesn’t go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods “clean.”) 20 He went on: “What comes out of a man is what makes him ‘unclean.’ 21 For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23 All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean.’”
We live in a world where people focus on the things they eat and drink, not willing to eat or drink certain things considering them to be bad for them. But according to the Bible it’s not what goes into the body that makes one defiled, it is what comes out of it. Look around you or as you watch TV, the focus is to direct your mind to not what defiles it but what defiles your body. If a person’s focus would shift from protecting their body from harmful things to concealing their minds from the things that causes the heart to being corrupt they would be much better off. A man who consumes himself with alcohol is not defiled by the alcohol, his defilement comes from the thoughts he had before he took his first drink. The alcohol is only a tools the man uses to empty the uncleanliness already in his heart. Take the time to change your thoughts to the things pertaining to God’s Word instead of this world. ~KP
Proverbs 3:3 (NIV)
Proverbs 3:3 (NIV)
3 Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.
As I begin my day I will pen on my heart the love of the mercy which God has shown me, showing the same to others. I will resolve to walk in the faithfulness of His truth according to His Word, living my life as an example. ~KP
Developing the Right Habits
It is easier to form good habits than to break bad ones.
God can give you the ability and power to change the way you live. With His help, you can choose to stop living your life in a nonstop pattern of sin.
The best way to stop–or at least slow down–the sin pattern that comes so naturally for you is by developing new habits. The old habits can be broken while the new ones are being established.
Developing new habits doesn’t come automatically. First, you must identify the conduct in your life that needs to stop. Next, you need to learn from God’s Word the type of lifestyle that God wants you to have. Then, you need to implement the new pattern of living–repeating it constantly so that it becomes an automatic habit.
You can’t accomplish all of this on your own. But you don’t have to because God is anxious to help you.
So now we can tell who are children of God and who are children of the Devil. Anyone who does not obey God’s commands and does not love other Christains does not belong to God (1 John 3:10).
The Truth Detector
It’s better to tell the truth than to avoid telling a lie.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to take a lie detector test? When you think about it, you envision yourself in a chair with some wires taped to your forehead and your chest (or wherever it is they stick those wires), and some expert in a white shirt asking you some direct questions to see if you’re telling the truth. Even if you want to tell the truth, you can see yourself sweating under the hot lights.
Don’t think of the Bible as a lie detector and God as the guy asking you questions in order to trip you up. The Bible is a truth detector that shows us the right way to live. When we study God’s Word and discover for ourselves how He wants us to think and act, we can easily see that anything contrary to God’s standard isn’t the truth at all.
Scripture [will]…make us realize what is wrong in our lives. 2 Timothy 3:16
