Verse of the Day 2/26

Through the Bible - Numbers 26-27, Mark 13

Good morning,
For today's verse we'll go to the book of Mark where Jesus is giving the disciples a lesson on hypocrisy. The pharisees and others were so concerned about what they ate and drank, the "rules" that they followed, the outward appearance of doing the right thing.
Jesus made it clear that there was much more to be concerned about. It's what is in your heart and what flows out of it.
The Message does a good job of putting it in modern language, it hit me.
Mark 7:20-23
He went on: "It's what comes out of a person that pollutes: obscenities, lusts, thefts, murders, adulteries, greed, depravity, deceptive dealings, carousing, mean looks, slander, arrogance, foolishness — all these are vomit from the heart. There is the source of your pollution." - The Message
Look at the list of things that "pollute".
I can be a man of few words, but unfortunately, over the years I've mastered disdainful, sarcastic, and just downright "mean looks" as described here, which speaks to me more than the "evil eye" in the NKJV. It's putting the two of them together that was so revealling to me.
These verses are another example of what God's Word can do, cutting like a knife to reveal "the thoughts and intents of the heart."
Heb 4:12-13
12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. NKJV

Read through the verses in The Message or whatever translation you have. Do you see something that is convicting to you? There are a lot of things to choose from.
Ask for His grace to overcome it in your life.
In Christ,
Mike
Mark 7:1-23
7 The Pharisees, along with some religion scholars who had come from Jerusalem, gathered around him. They noticed that some of his disciples weren't being careful with ritual washings before meals. The Pharisees — Jews in general, in fact — would never eat a meal without going through the motions of a ritual hand-washing, with an especially vigorous scrubbing if they had just come from the market (to say nothing of the scourings they'd give jugs and pots and pans).
The Pharisees and religion scholars asked, "Why do your disciples flout the rules, showing up at meals without washing their hands?"
Jesus answered, "Isaiah was right about frauds like you, hit the bull's-eye in fact:
These people make a big show of saying the right thing,but their heart isn't in it. They act like they are worshiping me,but they don't mean it.They just use me as a coverfor teaching whatever suits their fancy, Ditching God's commandand taking up the latest fads."
He went on, "Wel l, good for you. You get rid of God's command so you won't be inconvenienced in following the religious fashions! Moses said, 'Respect your father and mother,' and, 'Anyone denouncing father or mother should be killed.' But you weasel out of that by saying that it's perfectly acceptable to say to father or mother, 'Gift! What I owed you I've given as a gift to God,' thus relieving yourselves of obligation to father or mother. You scratch out God's Word and scrawl a whim in its place. You do a lot of things like this."
Jesus called the crowd together again and said, "Listen now, all of you — take this to heart. It's not what you swallow that pollutes your life; it's what you vomit — that's the real pollution."
When he was back home after being with the crowd, his disciples said, "We don't get it. Put it in plain language."
Jesus said, "Are you being willfully stupid? Don't you see that what you swallow can't contaminate you? It doesn't enter your heart but your stomach, works its way through the intestines, and is finally flushed." (That took care of dietary quibbling; Jesus was saying that all foods are fit to eat.)
He went on: "It's what comes out of a person that pollutes: obscenities, lusts, thefts, murders, adulteries, greed, depravity, deceptive dealings, carousing, mean looks, slander, arrogance, foolishness — all these are vomit from the heart. There is the source of your pollution."
(from THE MESSAGE)