Open Eyes of Heart - Mark 7:14-23

 

Mark 7:14-23 NIV

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.”

Open Eyes of Heart

Purity of heart. I hear in Jesus’ message of this passage of Scripture.

Hosea 6:6 NIV

⁶ For I desire mercy, not sacrifice,
    and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.

Amos 5:23 NIV

²³ Away with the noise of your songs!
    I will not listen to the music of your harps.

Micah 6:6-8 NIV

⁶ With what shall I come before the Lord
    and bow down before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
    with calves a year old?
⁷ Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
    with ten thousand rivers of olive oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,
    the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
⁸ He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
    And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
    and to walk humbly with your God.

Isaiah 58:1-14 NIV

58 “Shout it aloud, do not hold back.
    Raise your voice like a trumpet.
Declare to my people their rebellion
    and to the descendants of Jacob their sins.
² For day after day they seek me out;
    they seem eager to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that does what is right
    and has not forsaken the commands of its God.
They ask me for just decisions
    and seem eager for God to come near them.
³ ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say,
    ‘and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves,
    and you have not noticed?’

“Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please
    and exploit all your workers.
⁴ Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,
    and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today
    and expect your voice to be heard on high.
⁵ Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
    only a day for people to humble themselves?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
    and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
    a day acceptable to the Lord?

⁶ “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
    and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
    and break every yoke?
⁷ Is it not to share your food with the hungry
    and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
    and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
⁸ Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
    and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
    and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
⁹ Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
    you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
    with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
¹⁰ and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
    and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
    and your night will become like the noonday.
¹¹ The Lord will guide you always;
    he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
    and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
    like a spring whose waters never fail.
¹² Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
    and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
    Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

¹³ “If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath
    and from doing as you please on my holy day,
if you call the Sabbath a delight
    and the Lord’s holy day honorable,
and if you honor it by not going your own way
    and not doing as you please or speaking idle words,
¹⁴ then you will find your joy in the Lord,
    and I will cause you to ride in triumph on the heights of the land
    and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob.”
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

What are we doing? Do we do what we do, just to be seen by others? Do we do what we do to earn God’s favor? Do we do what we do to look good in the eyes of God? Do we do what we do out of selfish pride? What are we doing?

But wait a minute! You may say, these good works come from within. These good works come from deep in my heart. Maybe so, but why do you do the good works that you do?

Do you do your good works to be seen by others for people to see you? Do you do your good works to earn God’s favor? Do you do your good works for God to see you doing good works? Sounds just like the first set of questions.

Sometimes, what comes from within, is really some false notion of ours that came in from without. OK… now I’m talking in circles.

Some of these things that we do that we learn from without, really just lead us to satisfy our own pride. We know that doing good for another is good. Makes sense. But when we do good to make ourselves look good… well… that stuff may have been better just going on through us and out the sewer. The kind of doing good for another for the purpose of making yourself look good, doesn’t seen to fit the form of the message in this passage of Scripture from Jesus.

This type of doing good, is not impurity of hands. No, what you did was good for neighbor, but this type of pride in doing good, comes from impurity of heart.

Sin begins in our thought.

Galatians 5:19-21 NIV

¹⁹ The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; ²⁰ idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions ²¹ and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

 

But you say, I wasn’t doing any of this! Well, no, for the most part, it’s easy to pick up on these acts of the flesh. Sure, that stuff looks all bad. So, what are you getting at?

 

We are foolish when we think of sin as a joke. Well, that stuff above is no joke? That’s easy to see.

 

Romans 14:14 NIV

¹⁴ I am convinced, being fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for that person it is unclean.

 

What? You’re making understanding all of this worse!

 

What defiles us is an evil heart. This influence that comes from the outside and enters into our heart giving us pride for our own righteousness and our own works, is a poison that ruins life. This prideful evil is foolishness. And out of this evil heart flows:

Slander --- which is a form of murder

Pride --- maybe the deadliest of all sins AND it prevents penitence

Foolishness

Theft

Murder

Adultery

 

 

 

Moral cleanliness is more important than ceremonial cleanliness.

 

And now we’re back to this Open Eyes of Heart thing.

 

It is the Open Eyes of Heart that matters. Nothing outside can either defile or purify me.

 

So, what is a Pure Heart?

 

Look to the Beatitudes… Matthew 5:2-11… I’ll let you look that up yourself. Anyway, a pure heart is described as a meek spirit, a penitent mind and peace making.

 

The stuff that comes from your heart, that goes outside of yourself, not for your own benefit, but rather as a response to what God has already done, for and in and now through you is what is of God.

 

Proverbs 4:23 NIV

²³ Above all else, guard your heart,
    for everything you do flows from it.

So what?

Well, look at what comes from the outside. Jesus came to us from heaven. From outside. But what did he do from our outside? He took on our inside. Huh? Yea, he took on all of the impurity that came from our insides and brought it upon himself. He took all of our sin to die on the cross… on His outside.

Why? So that we could now live in Him and He in us. Jesus made the Open Eyes of our Heart his very own, so that we could live forever with Him in His Kingdom in the righteousness of our new heart… his heart… now our heart.

Well, that’s a bunch of gobble Dee gook!

So, now what comes out of our heart, is not pride for self. Rather what now comes out of our heart, the works of our heart, are the response to what God has given us through Jesus.

 

And that’s how it seems God has been using all of us messed up humans throughout creation.

 

Sometimes, I enter a passage of Scripture, the Words of Jesus and come out more confused than when I started. But that’s OK with me. Sometimes Jesus makes me stop, think, take in His Word, maybe not to understand it all, but rather to have His Word become a part of me, a part of my heart, maybe even to Open the Eyes of my Heart. It’s not always an easy understanding, at least for me, I admit. As I watch myself and remember what God has shown me, I see God’s Word gives Light and see how the Sword of the Spirit is the Word of God.

 

May God lead and guide the Open Eyes of Heart, in my actions to love God and love all those God gives to me… today… tomorrow… and forever.

 

Enjoy this YouTube music that brought meaning to this reflection…

Open The Eyes of My Heart