July 20th

July 20^th – Mark 7 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=mark%207&version=NLT)

 

Go read the passage, please!

 

So, I’m gonna’ skip the casting out of the demon and the other miracles – I just wanna’ focus on the Pharisees for a minute. Clearly, Jesus had a lot of problems with their religion and how they acted it out. The irony is, they claimed to be the religious teachers of God, but were offending the son of God with their actions. I think, though, that it just proves how careful we have to be about how we handle our faith. We so often compromise relationship for religion. I’ll explain that briefly. Basically, there are a lot of ‘casual Christians’. I mean the type who attend church, don’t party out late, or maybe even don’t drink, swear, or anything else that would be seen as bad in God’s eyes. I mean the people who talk the talk but don’t walk the walk. People like the Pharisees. Those who talk a lot and for all they’re worth sound like Christians, but don’t have that heart connection with God. That’s what I meant about relationship being lost for religion. I think sometimes we get so caught up in the technicalities that we become our own stumbling blocks. We become so built on principle we lost sight of all else, when those things should fall into place once we really have that connection with God, anyways. Our uniformity and overly stressed routine can also lead others off on the wrong track, just like how the Pharisees’ teachings were leading others, mostly themselves, further from God. So just be aware that your faith isn’t just lip-service, but a real and true heart/spirit connection with God.

 

That’s all! God bless! Shalom!

 

P.S. This is a day late because I forgot to do it yesterday.