Mark 7 - The heart is what matters

Our Lord Jesus Christ rebuked the Pharisees & the Jews for holding on to elder’s traditions and for teaching human precepts as doctrines. This people though they honor God with their lips but their hearts are from God, worshipping God in vain. This is in the context of how the Pharisees & the scribes were trying to find fault with Jesus Christ & His disciples due to envy. The main point of the message is one’s heart who is near to God, naturally their actions flow out & it would be sensible. Honoring parents is one of the commandment from God, but due to their pride or deceptions & lies, they did not follow that command in the excuse of giving the sacrifice to God. It is not wrong to give to others but the intention of the heart. Some may think that giving to God or a synagogue, church or ministry will get more blessing in return, some may think that they can out give God out of pride. This again is in the context of priority & sequence in following God’s will, both honoring parents & giving please God but if we dishonored our parents without repentance then keep on giving to others, one may need to examine the intention of the heart of doing so & ask the Holy Spirit to help the heart to align with God’s heart.

The heart is what’s matter. The Syrophoenician woman’s faith toward Jesus Christ demonstrated an example of defying all rules & traditions, she did not let those stop her from getting help from our Lord Jesus Christ, she had one goal in her heart, which is for her daughter to be well again. She had no pride nor cared about offending the Jewish tradition, not because of intentional disrespect but it was out of desperation for the sake of her daughter, it was for the sake of love & her actions follow her heart where the faith flowed out from.

May the Holy Spirit helps us to always be aligned with God’s heart & will, to create in us a clean heart so that we can worship our God in truth & in spirit.