Proverbs 4:23   Mark 7:1-23

Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

“Listen to me, all of you, and get this straight. What goes into you from outside can’t make you unclean. What makes you unclean is what comes from inside.” -Jesus the Messiah

How you think from the inner depths of your hidden self determines who you really are. You are what you think about. Some would say that you are the sum of your thoughts. Thoughts turn into action, action turns into habits, habits turn into destiny. What’s in your mind will enter someone else’s mind when you are with them. This is a symbiotic principle of YHWH’s universe. Someone will sense whether you are glad to be with them, if you like them, if you are silently judging them…

Examining yourself against this principle can make you feel like a crappy person, but that is not the goal here. Rather the hope is that it drives us to love others sincerely from the inside and also to believe  how good, loving, forgiving, welcoming, merciful, and accepting our Daddy is.

God actually thinks our relationship with Him is bigger and more important than our shortcomings, rebellion, and deformities. He places a higher value on relationship, and restoring relationship with us, than He does on the problems we have. God knows that relationship with Him is the basis for overcoming our sins, transgressions and iniquities.

-from Joy Starts Here