What Defiles Me?

Summoning the crowd. He told them, "Listen and understand: It 's not what goes into the mouth that defiles a man, but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man." Matthew 15:10,11

In an era when the people were consumed by laws Jesus walks in and says the above. He was battering all that some, the Pharisees, held sacred. Washing hands and eating rituals abounded, so much so that eating food was not much a pleasure but a chore.

Today we are bombarded by food rules of a different sort. 'if you eat carbs and protein together you will upset your stomach', if you eat potatoes you will gain weight', if you eat fat, the wrong sort, you will block your arteries'. Our tvs are consumed with cooking shows. There is a constant battle to be in charge, to take control.

Perhaps there is a better way. Perhaps being consumed with Christ and His way of doing and being right and not our own pleasures or fascinations is more profitable. A society consumed with self has too much time on its hands and needs to be busy with some profitable activity, like helping others.

What defiles us is a fleshly confession. It poisons all we eat, all we try to do to help ourselves. We are missing something vital if we only focus on the flesh and miss walking in Him. If I walk in Him and keep my eyes on Him I will not fulfill the flesh because the two are incompatible.

Jesus went on to say in verse 19 the types of things that defile us. They are: 'evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual immoralities, thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies.'

We will all experience evil thoughts but we do not live them until we speak them, then we pollute ourselves.