What Don't You like About Yourself?

PRAYER: LORD thank You for a new year!  Thank You for a new day!  Thank You for the opportunity to show love to those around me; for the opportunity to make obedient decisions; for the opportunity to forgive and be forgiven; for the opportunity to grow in Your ways and delight in Your glory that surrounds me.  You are so good LORD, I want everyone to know how good You are.  I lift up my friends who are feeling lost right now.  Who are feeling unhappy and unfulfilled.  I pray that they turn to You LORD.  I pray that they just cry out to You .  That if they are angry, that they bring that anger to You LORD.  Because You are a real God that can handle everything.  You are a God; whom wants us to come to Him with everything on our hearts and mind.  Even if we're full of negativity, You are the first One to whom we need to turn to.  We need to learn to trust You LORD.  We need to learn that Your love is real and great!  And by Your Spirit, Your love is full of infinite power.  You're amazing LORD!  My prayer is that everyone fully realizes how great You are.  You are the One I want by my side at all times.  Thank You LORD for caring about us and NEVER even thinking about giving up on us.  You are LOVE.  It's so good to know You.  Praise You! In Jesus' name.  Amen

MATTHEW 15: 10-11

CLEAN AND UNCLEAN: part 2

PLEASE READ THE VERSES DIRECTLY FROM THE BIBLE: 

These verses will be broken up to discuss each point

REVIEW v.1-9: Jesus told the Pharisees and teachers the following about breaking "religious" tradition- "And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, 'Honor your father and mother' and 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.' But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,' he is not to 'honor his father' with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition." You Hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: 'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men (Isaiah 29:13).' " (v.10-11) Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen and understand. What goes into a man's mouth does not make him 'unclean,' but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him 'unclean.' "

People ask me all the time, "Why don't you eat pork?  Are you Muslim?"  Ha!  Well, the answer is no.  I gave up pork as a sacrifice at the age of 12 years old- because I liked it!  It wouldn't be a sacrifice otherwise.  Now, my taste buds and body just rejects it.  I don't condemn those who eat it; a majority of my family members eat pork.  In the book of Leviticus from the Old Testament, there are regulations created about clean and unclean animals.  But you have to remember the context by which these regulations were given; the people of the Old Testament needed these regulations because Jesus had not been born on earth as of yet. Now in Matthew, we're given the actual difference between clean and unclean.  From Jesus' mouth, it is confirmed that what you eat does not make you unclean.    Jesus was referring to the Jewish regulation concerning food and drink.  This statement offended the Pharisees, who were very concerned about what people ate and drank.  The 11th verse could be paraphrased: "You aren't made unclean by eating non kosher food, pork, beef..etc!  It is what you say and think that makes you unclean!" 

Are you always tearing people down?  "She's ugly!"  "She's fat!"  Do you find that you hate everyone?  Is every other word out of your mouth a curse word?

In relation to what Jesus says "unclean" means; are you clean?  It's time to clean house, you're much too precious to be unclean.

PONDER THIS:

ARE YOU HONESTLY HAPPY WITH YOURSELF?

We usually put others down because of what we don't like about ourselves.

ACTION:

OUR ACTIONS AND OUR ATTITUDES MUST BE SINCERE IN EVERYTHING WE DO.