“Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)

He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”

Mark 7:18-23

Do you produce actions in keeping with having a pure heart? Are you able to say that no evil actions come from within you? Pure heartedness is not a state of being, especially for those with knowledge of sin; it becomes a discipline which must be undertaken. The excision of evil actions and thoughts is what creates pure heartedness. It is not by performing good deeds alone (like not eating unclean foods) but by also purging evil ones that one becomes pure.

Want to be undefiled? Don’t focus on only practicing the good that can be seen but being good from the inside out.

Ethan Kirl