Mark 7: 9-16 (NLT)
Then he said, “You skillfully sidestep God’s law in order to hold on to your own tradition. For instance, Moses gave you this law from God: ‘Honor your father and mother, and ‘Anyone who speaks disrespectfully of father or mother must be put to death. But you say it is all right for people to say to their parents, ‘Sorry, I can’t help you. For I have vowed to give to God what I would have given to you.’ In this way, you let them disregard their needy parents. And so you cancel the word of God in order to hand down your own tradition. And this is only one example among many others.” Then Jesus called to the crowd to come and hear. “All of you listen,” he said, “and try to understand. It’s not what goes into your body that defiles you; you are defiled by what comes from your heart.”
If you’ve lived long enough, you know all too well the depraved state of our society. Sin runs rampant, from illicit sexual pleasures, to the greed of money and possessions, to desires for people or things not ours, to godless acts of violence and perversion. As deplorable as these things are, they don’t make us unclean. Its only when we allow these things on the outside to come in the door of our hearts that they wreak havoc. It's when they return to the outside taking our very soul with them.
This is how it was taught to me by my mentors and how I will now pass it on to you as well.
We all have a heart. And not just in a literal sense. On our heart is a door and at that door is a guard. Whenever thoughts, both good and bad, approach the heart, they must encounter the guard. Our guard is stronger if empowered by the Holy Spirit and obviously weaker without the connection. If acting according to the Word, the guard must take EVERY though captive (2 Corinthians 10:5) to see if its Godly and uplifting. Depending on our level of spiritual maturity, many of the thoughts from the list above may be included. Our guard must be prepared to keep our heart clean by running off or killing those lustful thoughts. If our guard slips up or flirts with those lusts, they will weasel by and begin their pollution. Left unchecked, these lusts will further materialize in our actions. And the uncleanness is complete.
Can you see the difference? Do you understand what Jesus is talking about? That it's not the outside things which pollute us but those things coming from within. Finally, consider this thought from (my favorite) author and thinker C.S. Lewis, which reiterates this Scripture:
“If we insist on keeping hell (or even earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of hell.”
