Devotion
Clean or Unclean
Frances Taylor

Mark's gospel continues with a list of those things that make defile the man: evil thoughts, sexual sins, thefts, murders, adulteries, coveting, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride and foolishness.

Take a good look at the list. How many of these evils are now in vogue as opposed to being considered to be sins. The ads we see are designed to make us covet our neighbor's goods, lifestyle and often, his wife. People climb all over others to get to the top in business. Pride makes us think that we deserve more than our share and there's no point in talking about fornication or adultery because we are so past seeing the wrongdoing in either of those. Just listen to the music, watch a movie or television program, not to mention the ads, and we get the picture that this is just normal behavior. Jesus was quite specific in this teaching. Just because everyone is doing it, does that make it right? No wonder our world is in such a mess. Do today's Christians even read the Bible? If so, how do we justify our actions or turn a blind eye to the actions of others? Let us take a good look at what "comes out of us" and make sure that we eliminate anything that defiles us.

Prayer

Lord, we really need to take a better look at how we live. Let us keep our eyes on you and ask for your help to avoid giving in to temptation. Amen.