defiled

I work with a couple of germophobes. One of them will even rub disinfectant on her hands if I shake hands with her. I wonder sometimes if that level of concern over cleanliness isn't good; how does our immune system stay robust if it never has to fight anything? That may be why the germophobes are just as likely as the rest of us to get sick.

Too bad we don't get as obsessed about spiritual purity. 

Back in Jesus's day they were very focused on whether people were spiritually unclean. But they got it all wrong; they worried about what people ate and what buildings they walked into. 

Jesus set them straight in Mark 6:16 and 20-23: "Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, 'Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them. . . . For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.'"

I wonder if I'm not looking at spiritual health the same way those germophobes look at their physical health. It's easy to think that temptation comes at me from outside, that it worms its way into my consciousness because of TV shows or crude jokes or popular music or fiction. In fact, there have been times in my life when I focused on "redeeming" my personal spaces by purging anything that might suggest a fleshly thought.

Those efforts didn't really put much of a dent in my sinning, though, and now I know why. Those outside things don't defile me, my own heart does. That's going to be a lot harder to address than just purging my bookshelves and music collection. 

I get it, though. I can be tempted to sin in the middle of a church service, so it's obvious that my own memories and desires are the problem. And I can see from the things that don't tempt me, like gambling, that abundant opportunity is no problem if my heart is right.

But oh, those favorite sins. What about those? Can I get my heart right on my snobbish attitudes, my lack of empathy, my tendency toward sloth, my attraction to physical beauty? That's where my heart defiles me.

Can I? No, not by myself. The only thing that has ever worked for me when it comes to temptation is prayer. When I take my sin straight to Jesus, only then do I find the strength to resist it.