Speaker 1: Most of us eat every day, some of us too
much because yesterday's food is not enough to supply energy
for today's needs. Why then, do some of us expect
yesterday's portion of heavenly manna the word of God to
keep us through today's challenges. On this program, we are
going to change all of that. Let's experience God's words
today and receive the power we need to live healthy,
vibrant lives. Welcome to your Daily Portion with your host,
author speaker, Elle David Harris.
Speaker 2: Good morning, Good morning, Good morning. It is Monday, August five,
twenty twenty four. Hello, my name is El David Harris.
I am your host, and this is your Daily Portion
where we give you God's word every single day, and
today is no exception. We are continuing in our Lesson
study series through the Book of Mark, and our caption
for today is clean hands or clean Heart. Clean hands
or clean Heart. We'll get into that in just a moment,
but before we do, I just want to take a
pause right here. It is the fifth day of August.
It's a special day for me and because Simone and
I have been married for twenty three years, so I
just want to say great, big, happy anniversary. Of course,
I'm going to talk to you in just a minute, Simon.
But I'm thankful. I'm thankful. It's a special anniversary for
me because my parents, my late parents, they divorced at
twenty three years and so God has given Simona and
I the privilege, the privilege of breaking the cycle. And
some people think that's too much information, but you just
have to know the nature of my praise. I am
grateful because God made a promise. He said that we
if we just yield our will to him, that he'll
do mighty exploits in our lives. And so I'm grateful.
I'm grateful for you, Simon, and I'm really really happy
that God has made us whole and made us holy
so that we can live together in harmony for twenty
three great years. So Lord, bless you. Lord bless you,
and thank you for everybody who's watching and listening for
giving me just that moment to give God thanks. Let's
go ahead and pray and then we will get underway.
Father in heaven, thank you for this day and for
the privilege that we have in you to do your
will and to hear your words. Help us to have
congruence in our lives, so that what we do and
what we say are holy. What we think and what
we do, they are holy. In Jesus' name. I pray,
Amen and Amen again. Clean hands or clean heart. Well,
I don't know that we have to decide between the two.
But let's go in. Let's go in here and make
some sense of this. Okay. I know what the context
of the story is, because we started the discussion yesterday.
But let's go now to the Bible Book of Mark,
chapter seven, and I will read beginning at verse fourteen,
And the Bible reads, and when he had called all
the people unto him, he said, unto them, hearken unto me,
every one of you, and understand, there is nothing from
without a man that entering into him can defile him.
But the things which come out of him, those are
they that defile the man. If a man have ears
to hear, let him hear. And when he was entered
into the house from the people, his disciples asked him
concerning the parable, and he said, unto them, are ye
so without understanding? Also do you not perceive that whatsoever
thing from without entereth into the man cannot defile him,
because it entereth, not into his heart, but into his belly,
and go without in the draft, purging all meats. And
let me just say the obvious stuff here, Jesus gave
a basic lesson about like when you're eating based on
a ceremonial thing, like so you're having let's give it
a real meal, right, say you're having peep to bread, right,
some whole wheat pita bread, and in it you have hummus,
and uh, maybe you have some vegetables and you have
something else, right, and it's good food. Right, And because
you don't ceremonially wash your hands. And I'm speaking now
from the mindset of the people who were listening ceremonially,
it had nothing to do with cleanliness. It had nothing
to do with what they were about to eat. Of course,
they were kosher as we call it today. They didn't
eat unclean foods in an unclean manner. And they even
took that to another level that was beyond what the
scripture said. That's a different discussion. And so Jesus is saying, so,
hold on, are you saying that if they pick up
that same meal and then just begin to eat it,
that you think that that makes a person unholy. Come on,
come on, come on, come on, eating that meal that
is clean, that meal that is healthy, that meal that
is not in contrast to what God taught us about
how we are to eat and to drink. You're saying
that because they didn't do that ceremonial washing, that that
makes them unholy. That is not the case. You should
not be satisfied with simply washing your hands ceremonially and
allowing your lives and hearts to be defiled. There are
people right now who do all kinds of ceremonial things.
I won't go into the details, but some religious practices,
things that make us feel good, and we say that
we have the truth, and we do all of these
things in terms of our speech to show people that
we have intellectual superiority. And then the way we treat
people is foul and rude. Sometimes we who do these
things that look like ceremonial and they look good. They're
religiously pompous, like we give greetings in high places. When
we're standing at the pullpit, we sing songs in perfect
harmony and perfect pitch. We're never late to a religious
organized a meeting. And then when it comes to how
we treat our spouses something's wrong, or do our spouses
even live with us? Like, what, where's my spouse? Hmmm?
Sometimes we are in situations where we've done all of
those things outwardly. And the way we treat our children,
the way we treat people on the road who have needs, ah,
the way we treat people when we are in our
gyms working out and exercising, when we're on travel. How
we are on travel may be different than how we
are at home, and there is hypocrisy there. We fast,
some of us long fasts and make ourselves look sullen
and worn. And then we have the power to deliver
people from oppression, and don't Some of us have people
working for us direct reports one, two, three, or five
or hundreds, depending on your level, and those individuals are
not receiving the kind of love, the kind of attention,
the kind of assistance that they need to do their
work well. And we can make a difference and don't.
And so Jesus is saying, don't worry about all that
hand washing, all of that religious stuff that you all
are doing. True religion and undefiled has a certain way
that it acts under the power the Holy Ghost. How
it actually lives from the inside out, not from the
outside in. And so, of course I said something in
the beginning that may have confused some of you. We
don't have to choose, I say, clean hands or clean hearts. Well, scripturally,
clean hands and hearts go together. The people who will
see God in the end have clean hands. That is
what we do. Our hands are clean. The things that
we do are just like what God. What God has
done in our hearts, in our minds. He said, as
a human, as a man thinketh in his heart, so
is he. So the way that I am connecting to God,
Let's assume the way that I am holy, because God
makes me holy, then that will come out in my
actual way hands what I do. And if there is
a contrast between the two, a conflict between the two,
then we all who have these conflicts need to go
to God and say, God, please wash my heart, make
me holy. You promised that you would write your laws
in my heart and on my mind so that I
could be your child, so that I could represent you
as a holy person in this world, a shining light
in this wicked and perverse generation, so they would see
my good works and glorify you. Because you're in heaven,
and if we live that kind of lifestyle, then we're
good to go. No contrast, it's not that we relax,
but we continue to yield ourselves to God and surrender
our will. So what can we learn here. You've already
said that what defiles comes from within, that is the heart.
So we need to yield our hearts, our lives to God.
We have to have discernment over legalism. Over legalism, we
can tick all of the boxes, we can color in
all of the places, the circles and bubbles to say
that we have completed this test of religious pomposity. Well,
but God is saying, no, don't be legalistic. I want
you to descern when it is appropriate for you to
do X or y, and does it measure up to
the spirituality of the law. And then finally, we should
worship God. We have the privilege because God is a
spirit and those who worship him must worship him in
spirit and in truth. Your hands and your heart go
together both under the power the Holy Ghost, must and
can be clean peace.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us listening. Friends. Always remember we cannot
live by bread alone, but by every word that comes
from the mouth of God. This has been your daily
portion with El David Harris. Make it a great day. Yeah,