Day 17: Glorious Ruins

Read Mark 6-8

Mark 6-8 has a lot of very important stories that portray some of the main miracles that Jesus performed when he was on earth. I would like to focus on three main points from Mark 7. 

1) Jesus is not completely against traditions, as long as they do not take preference over His word. In this verse we see that Jesus was upset with the Pharisees for putting more focus on their traditions rather than focusing on following the Word of the Lord:

He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: “‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’ You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.” 

• The Pharisees added many of their own rules to God's holy law and used them as an excuse to not help their families in need. They said it was more important to put money in the Temple treasury than to help their needy parents, when the word of the Lord says to "honor your father and mother" (Exodus 20:12), and "help those in need" (Lev 25:35-43).
• Our church traditions we follow, unlike the traditions that the Pharisees, are true to the word and give structure and order to our worship service. It is easy to get caught up in hating our traditions and lose the whole purpose of worshipping Lord in truth and spirit. Take time this lenten season to understand our worship (what verses we use, how our Madhbaha is created, etc). 

2) Jews believed what went into their mouth defiled them (made them clean/unclean). So they prevented the eating of certain foods and did many cleansing rituals before they ate. Jesus, however, told them that it is the desires of their heart and the thoughts in their mind that defile them. 

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 (wickedness), envy, slander, pride and folly.  All these evils come from inside and defile a person.” -Mark 7:15-23

• Jesus mentions 13 things in this passage that defile us. As kids when we read the 10 commandments, we tell ourselves that we can easily cross of sins like murder or adultery (the BIG sins). This changes when Jesus tells us in Matthew 5:21-30 that when we hate our brother we commit murder, and when we look at a women with lust we commit adultery. All these 13 sins listed start with a single evil thought, which brings me to my next point. 
• Often we feed our minds with things of this world more than we feed ourselves with things of the Lord. We spent more time watching TV, listening to music, gossiping, on social media, etc. and wait till the end of the day to read a quick psalm before bed. The world overpowers our knowledge of the Lord, and the thoughts of the world crowd our knowledge of God and what it looks like to live in HIS image. 
• So how do we change that? Make a conscience effort to prune out things that lead us to sin. Are the shows you're watching affecting how you think?  Is the music you're listening to causing you to curse? Are the friends you're hanging out with influencing you negatively?  See if God is the center of our lives, or just someone we pretend to make time for.

And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise." -Phil 4:8 

This lenten season evaluate yourself to see which master you serve, and make efforts to feed yourselves things of the lord. 

3) Lastly, Jesus calls us to bring our sins into the light, because sin grows in the darkness. Most of us get so comfortable with throwing our sins under the rug in hopes that if we don't talk about it, maybe it never happened. 

"For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light! For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true." -Ephesians 5:8-9

• So don't believe the lie that you are alone in what you dealt with or are dealing with. For the longest part of middle school and beginning of high school I dealt with Bulimia. It was a sin that I was ashamed of and refused to talk about. It was not until the last couple years did I start to bring that sin to light by sharing it with people, and being completely freed from it. 
• God calls us to community to do life together with fellow believers. Your past sins are part of a great testimony that can help your fellow sisters and brothers in Christ dealing with similar situation. 

The song "Glorious Ruins" played when I was meditating on this passage. The chorus is 

Let the ruins come to light
In the beauty of Your name
Rising up from the ashes
God forever You'll reign

So bring your ashes to light so that even in your darkness - God will be glorified. 

P.S. Special thanks to Priya, Ben and Pearl for helping me with the cover :)

- Crystal Rajan