Reading
SAA Notes
Spiritual uncleanness is not visible to the human eye. Can you find any clues here in Jesus’ words to help you understand the chasm that sin places in your life between you and your God? What should you do about it? Read on!
SJA Notes
* God Above, Your word is the truth we need in our lives. Please work it in and through us, that we might live according to this truth.
“What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts …”
Our hearts are the problem.
In the book of Jeremiah we read,
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”
Jesus here points to this reality – That it is the heart that determines the state of a person.
In the book of Ezekiel we then read God’s design,
“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”
David knew of this reality when he cried out in Psalm 51,
“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”
When we follow Jesus our hearts are _not far_ but near to Him (because of His work, we are born again with new hearts).
When we do what He tells us (because we love Him), our hearts bear the fruit of God, His Spirit at work in us.
When we proclaim Jesus, we bring His good news to those hard hearts around us.
Pray that they may be broken, stone gone away, replaced with life!
* Father God,
Thank You that in Jesus we have a new heart, a new spirit.
Please continue to work within us, each day reviving and readjusting our hearts.
Amen.