Prayer – Lord God,
You are a mighty God. Forgive me for not reading Your Word consistently. Thank
you for showing me the importance of spending time with You, reading Your Word
and praying. Help me be an example to my children and grandchildren that they
would come to love you even more deeply than I do—and I love You with all my
heart, soul, mind and strength. 
Treasure God's Word
Listen
Then Jesus called to the crowd to come and hear.
"All of you listen," he said, "and try to understand. It's not
what goes into your body that defiles you; you are defiled by what comes from
your heart." - Mark 7:14-15
Meditate. Listen.
Once again, the disciples were clueless so Jesus clarified the parable that He told so they could understand it. …that which proceeds out of the man that is what defiles the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man. Mark 7: 20-23. That is pretty straight forward—the foods we eat goes through us and are eliminated from our bodies, but our thoughts, words and actions can make us unclean. To the Jews cleanliness was pretty important. The Pharisees and other Jews were continually focused on purification before eating, after shopping in the market, and before worshipping. They questioned Jesus since His disciples were not washing their hands before they ate. Today we know the importance of washing to remove germs, but during Jesus’ time, for the Jewish people it was a ritual that was bound up in tradition.
Listen. Listen. Listen. Do you
hear Jesus speaking? Do you have ears to hear? Jesus said that several
times…ears to hear. Read these verses to your children. How can they have “ears
to hear” unless someone reads the Bible to them? How can you hear God’s Word,
unless you read it?
- He who has ears to hear, let him
hear. Matthew
11:15
- And He was saying, "He who
has ears to hear, let him hear." ... "If anyone has ears to hear, let
him hear." Mark
4:9, 23
- If anyone has ears to hear, let
him hear. Mark
7:16
- Other seed fell into the good
soil, and grew up, and produced a crop a hundred times as great. As He said
these things, He would call out, "He who has ears to hear, let him
hear." Luke
8:8
- It is useless either for the
soil or for the manure pile; it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him
hear." Luke
14:35
Are you reading God’s Word every
day? Are you listening for what He is telling you…are you praying?
Verse of Salvation ~ And after they had argued back and
forth among themselves, they left with this final word from Paul: "The
Holy Spirit was right when he said to your ancestors through Isaiah the
prophet, 'Go and say to this people: When you hear what I say, you will not
understand. When you see what I do, you will not comprehend. For the hearts of
these people are hardened, and their ears cannot hear, and they have closed
their eyes--so their eyes cannot see, and their ears cannot hear, and their
hearts cannot understand, and they cannot turn to me and let me heal them.' So
I want you to know that this salvation from God has also been offered to the
Gentiles, and they will accept it." - Acts 28:25-28 NLT
© 2023 Text, photos, and illustrations by Mickey M. Hunacek. All
rights reserved.
From August 29, 2013 "Banquet With The King" blog.
All scripture quoted from the New Living Translation (NLT) unless
otherwise noted.
New Living Translation copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale
House Foundation.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream,
Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Biblical search from Blue Letter Bible - http://v3.blueletterbible.org/search.cfm.
Books by Mickey M.
Hunacek
Available as e-books or paperbacks at Amazon.com
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