After He called the crowd to Him again, He began saying to them, “Listen to Me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside the person which can defile him if it goes into him; but the things which come out of the person are what defile the person.”

Have you recently had an instant reaction that surprised you? Have you been surprised by how much something that bothered you? Have you been surprised because you did something you thought you would never do or at least had gotten better at avoiding? Moments like these can give us insight on what is going on in our hearts. Is it easy to brush off these moments, considering them as isolated events or issues we can figure out on our own with behavior modification. Or we make excuses for our behaviors by pointing to the external pieces of the puzzle. We think surely if they wouldn’t have pressed my buttons, I wouldn’t have lost my cool. We think if the circumstances changed, we wouldn’t be so stressed and act out. All these external things can factor into our experiences, but they do not point us to the real problem, they actually distract us from it.

Jesus is very clear in this passage: the problem of our sin behavior is in our heart. We have angry outbursts not primarily because of what’s happening but because of the sinful desire in our hearts to control the situation. We stew in frustration not primarily because the situation warrants it but because we have let bitterness overwhelm our hearts. We do things that we never thought we would do because our hearts desire our own way over opening ourselves up and surrendering to the Spirit at work inside of us. If the heart is the primary problem, then only Christ holds the true and lasting solution. Only He can take what is broken when we surrender and give us a new mind and a new heart through the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.

• What problems of the heart do you struggle to deal with? Are there any from the past that keep popping up? How is God asking you to deal with those now?
• When have you blamed your sin on external factors rather than your heart? Why?
• Pray and admit to God that the primary problem in your behavior is your heart. Thank Him for His complete forgiveness and continuous gift of grace to heal the wounds of sin.