Now We Can Get There

Mark 7:20-23 (NIV)
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.'"

Mark 7:20-23 (MSG)
²⁰ He went on: "It's what comes out of a person that pollutes:
²¹ obscenities, lusts, thefts, murders, adulteries,
²² greed, depravity, deceptive dealings, carousing, mean looks, slander, arrogance, foolishness—
²³ all these are vomit from the heart. There is the source of your pollution."

Jesus is responding to a question of what makes a man acceptable to God. The teachers of the law are offended and complaining because the disciples are not following the traditions handed down from their elders. They are good at the form of the law, but not so good at the spirit of the law. Because the disciples have not properly washed, they see an unclean act. An unclean act makes one unacceptable to God, but they are not truly able to see.

Jesus corrects them. What makes a person unclean in God’s sight comes from the heart. We all have one and we are all capable of behaving in ways that remove us from God. It is the heart that God looks to and the heart that will be judged. If left on our own, our prospects are hopeless. We cannot get there from here.

The good news is that Jesus came that our hearts would be made clean and acceptable to God. What is impossible for us is accomplished by the Father’s will and the Son’s sacrifice on our behalf. Now there is a way to get there, only we start from a different place. When we put our faith in Jesus we are immediately brought close to God. The journey then is a walk with Him. Now we can get there.