Inner Purity - Numbers 17-22 & Mark 7:1-23

So I gotta tell you, I never have and still don't understand the scene where God tells Balaam to go on with Balak's men and then God gets mad at him for going. Sounds a bit confusing to me. Nonetheless, my study notes suggest that the reason Balaam went was the money and that's what God was mad about. I don't know if the writes of these notes are correct, but it makes sense if they are, because God (and Jesus) are all about our motives.

As can be seen in today's reading in Mark 7. Jesus talks about how it is not what goes in(such as food) that defiles us, but rather what comes out of our hearts. But this begs that question, "What shapes our hearts and makes them produce evil?" My answer, and I hope it doesn't contradict what Jesus has just said, is that it is what goes in! In other words, our hearts, or rather our minds (since we don't actually make decisions with our hearts) our shaped by our experiences and what we allow into our heads. I am preaching about this to our youth all the time (and need to preach it to myself as well) because we live in a media saturated culture. There are literally thousands of messages bombarding us daily and we have to protect our minds. We have to be careful about what or who we listen to, what we watch, where we go, etc. Satan has his hands all over the television, movie, radio, and advertising arenas in this world and we have to be aware of that and choose to fill our minds with more light than darkness.

If you constantly watch and listen to darkness, all you have to come out of you is....darkness. But don't forget that light is so much more powerful than darkness. One candle in a huge dark room is much more powerful than one small bit of darkness in a well lit room.

God is light. Begin to allow Him to fill you until "your light so shines before men, that they will see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." Matthew 5:16