December 10, 2012

As a response to the Pharisee's criticism of the disciples for not following the letter
of the law, Jesus said this,
"It's what comes out of a person that pollutes:  obscenities, lusts, thefts,
murders, adulteries, greed, depravity, deceptive dealings, carousing, mean looks,
slander, arrogance, foolishness --  all these are vomit from the heart. 
There is the source of your pollution."
Mark 7:7-23 (Msg)

Why Did God Come to Earth?

C.S. Lewis wrote, "[Jesus] came to this world and became a man to spread the kind of life he has -- by what I call a 'good infection'.  Every Christian is to become a little Christ.  The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else."

Jesus did not come to earth to socialize us into Christian behaviors.  He came to infect us with a new kind of life.  The heart depicted above needs infused with the life of Jesus, which, as it grows within, chokes out the old and permeates the heart with the new.

But you do have a part in this transformation.  I call it "strategic positioning" which means that each of  us must put ourselves in a position where that new life of God can make its way into us.  That will be the subject of Wednesday's blog.

"Lord, it is so hard and disheartening to look into my heart and see the pollution that is still there.  Yet, thanks to You, to Jesus and to the Holy Spirit, that is not all that is there.  May your life within me increase even as my sin dies away.  Amen."