Day 21…Mark 7:15

"Nothing outside a man can make him ‘unclean’ by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him unclean.” (Mark 7:15) 

Notes from the devotional:

• It’s not easy to be pure in an impure world.
• Even if you become a cultural ostrich and avoid all movies, listen only to Christian radio, and read only Christian books and magazines, you’re still going to struggle.
• You will never become a godly man by negation. A pure, pollution-free environment doesn’t make pure people. Jesus makes it clear that what’s inside a man defiles him. That’s where we need to start.
• If a farmer doesn’t plan seeds, he will never harvest a crop – doesn’t matter how weed-free the ground is. In the same way, we can only reap a harvest of purity and integrity by planting the good seed of God’s Word into our lives.
• The devotional writer is not talking about merely reading the Bible. He is talking about allowing the Hly Spirit to pant the truths of the Scripture deep into our hearts and minds through consistent Bible reading and memorization, meditation, and prayer.

My notes:

• Yet again… God is reminding me for the need to be in the Word every day.
• It makes sense and I can see it in my own life. I have tried and tried and tried over the years to “keep my mind and eyes clean” (if you know what I mean) by “bouncing my eyes off of “ tempting images, keeping my mind clean, avoiding tempting images on TV and in movies, having computer screening apps on my computer, and so on. But they never work for long. It is because I am not trying to clean my mind and heart from within. If I try to empty that part of me, it is going to leave a void. And my sinful nature is going to fill it with, well, sinful things if left to its own devices. Therefore if I want to remain a man of integrity, that void needs to be filled by forcing the sinful nature out of the way and filling that void with God’s purity and integrity.
• If I focus on filling my heart with God’s Word, there will be less room for my sinful nature to flood me with other things.

Personal challenge:

• What are you planting in your heart?
• Ask God to plant the truths of the Scripture deep into you.

~~from Men of Integrity: A Daily Guide to the Bible and Prayer (1999)~~