Heart Attack!

¹⁷ “Anything you eat passes through the stomach and then goes into the sewer. ¹⁸ But the words you speak come from the heart—that’s what defiles you. ¹⁹ For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander. ²⁰ These are what defile you. Eating with unwashed hands will never defile you.”
-Matthew 15:17-20 (NLT)


I was browsing my news feed the other day on Facebook, and a picture of Rick Santorum (you know, a candidate for President) was eating ribs. The caption for the picture quoted Leviticus 11:7, which says, "And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you." What does this have to do with eating ribs. I like ribs, bbq'd and grilled, you can't do much better than that. The point they were trying to make was that, according to the Bible, we should not eat pork. That was correct, for the Jews in the Old Testament. We are not under the OT Law, because Jesus fulfilled the requirements. Look at the words of Jesus in Matthew 15:17-20.


"Anything you eat passes through the stomach and then goes into the sewer. ¹⁸ But the words you speak come from the heart—that’s what defiles you. ¹⁹ For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander. ²⁰ These are what defile you. Eating with unwashed hands will never defile you." 


It doesn't matter what we eat, eventually it's going down the drain anyway. What maters is what comes out of the heart. Look at the things Jesus says comes from the heart, in verse 19, "For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander." This is list of the evils that defile us, and all of them have their source in the heart. These, also, are some of the marks of the sinful nature. They have their start in the heart. James writes about this in James 1:14-15, "¹⁴ Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. ¹⁵ These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death." I think that these sinful desires start in the mind, but end up in the heart and leads to sin. Look at the pattern James describes here. Temptation comes from our own desires. Our desires grow and drags us away from the truth. They lead to sinful actions. When sin takes over, it leads to spiritual death. What's dragging you down today? 


Since we've established that these sinful desires Jesus talks about in Matthew 15:19 come from the heart, I believe that the good things of God comes from the heart as well. In Galatians 5, Paul writes about the fruit of the Spirit. Galatians 5:22-23 says, "²² But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!" Since your heart can produce sinful things like adultery, theft and lying, it can produce the good things like love, kindness and self control. The question is: Who controls your heart? Is it God, or is it the devil? Think About It.