Day 36 - April 9
Scripture Reading
Mark 7:7-23 (NLT)
7 Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.’
8 For you ignore God’s law and substitute your own tradition.”
9 Then he said, “You skillfully sidestep God’s law in order to hold on to your own tradition. 10 For instance, Moses gave you this law from God: ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and ‘Anyone who speaks disrespectfully of father or mother must be put to death.’
11 But you say it is all right for people to say to their parents, ‘Sorry, I can’t help you. For I have vowed to give to God what I would have given to you.’
12 In this way, you let them disregard their needy parents.
13 And so you cancel the word of God in order to hand down your own tradition. And this is only one example among many others.”
14 Then Jesus called to the crowd to come and hear. “All of you listen,” he said, “and try to understand.
15 It’s not what goes into your body that defiles you; you are defiled by what comes from your heart.”*
17 Then Jesus went into a house to get away from the crowd, and his disciples asked him what he meant by the parable he had just used.
18 “Don’t you understand either?” he asked. “Can’t you see that the food you put into your body cannot defile you?
19 Food doesn’t go into your heart, but only passes through the stomach and then goes into the sewer.” (By saying this, he declared that every kind of food is acceptable in God’s eyes.)
20 And then he added, “It is what comes from inside that defiles you.
21 For from within, out of a person’s heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder,
22 adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness.
23 All these vile things come from within; they are what defile you.”
Prayer Focus
For focus on the inner person rather than on what’s on the outside
Preserve me from all those snares and temptations that continually solicit me to offend you. Guide me by your Holy Spirit in all those places where your providence shall lead me this day; and do not allow my communications with the world to dissipate my thoughts, to make me inattentive to your presence, or lukewarm in your service; but let me always walk as in your sight, and as one who knows this life to be the seed time of an eternal harvest. Keep me, I ask you, undefiled, unblamable, and unreprovable unto the end; and grant that I may so diligently perform your will, in that station wherein you have been pleased to place me, that I may make my calling and election sure, through Jesus Christ, our blessed Lord and Saviour.
~ A Prayer for Help in Temptation and Obedience by John Wesley
Reflection
Pray that the Holy Spirit will ensure that my actions and thoughts align with God’s heart rather than external traditions and expectations.
* Some translations include a parenthetical verse 16 [“If anyone has ears to hear, he should listen.”]