One of the things that stands out when I read the Gospels is that Jesus was willing to confront the religious leaders of His day. These men had taken simple statements from the Law of Moses and created a huge system of rules that everyone had to keep...and then, they enforced them. Jesus was, in a very real sense, robbing them of their authority, and they didn't like it. In today's passage, we learn about one such confrontation, so let’s listen to it:

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.” After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.) He went on: “What comes out of a person is what 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.” (Mark 7:14-23)

Wow! Can you imagine for a moment just how radical this statement about food laws was to Jesus’ Jewish listeners? Jesus was now saying those rules had nothing to do with righteousness. Instead, he focused on the sin that was in their hearts when He said, “For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come… All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”

What Jesus said then, is the same for us today. If you and I try to become holy by keeping a set of external religious rules, we are missing the point. God wants us to be holy, but Jesus is telling us that can’t happen through some kind of self-imposed, sin-management system. Holiness must come through repentance and faith in Jesus, seeking Him, and receiving His forgiveness for our sins. God will help you and will help me to overcome our sins through our relationship with His Son...and that is very Good News!