Good Morning Friends,
“Jesus went on: ‘What comes out of a man is what makes him
“unclean.” For from within, out of men's
hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed,
malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a
man “unclean.”’” (Mark 7:20-23)
It seems to me that the goal of a monastery
is to take away as much of the stimulus to sin as can possibly be taken
away. Monasteries are usually built in
remote areas away from the crowds.
Access to television is forbidden or severely restricted. The books available in the library have been
carefully screened. Some monasteries
even forbid those who live there to talk with each other. Almost all outside stimulus is removed in
order to encourage purity of life and purity of thought. Monasteries are among the most extreme
efforts to reduce or eliminate the contamination that comes into a man’s life
from the outside world.
But the problem with monasteries is that
although they may be successful in eliminating almost all outside influences
toward sin they cannot remove the most powerful influence of all – the evil
that resides within a man’s heart!
It is important to understand that there are
ways that God would have us control or reduce the influences toward sin as much
as we can. We are to flee temptation. Still, the scripture is clear that we are not
to go so far as to remove ourselves from the world. Jesus’ instruction was for us to remain in
the world without being of the world. (John 17:15-16)
The point that Jesus made above in Mark’s Gospel
is that even if we get rid of all the evil influences that come at us from
outside, we will never be able to make ourselves pure that way. The evil arises from within our hearts. The only hope for purity lies in the One who
can change our hearts. Only Jesus can
change us from the inside out.
His, by Grace,
Steve
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