Mark 7:20-23

20 And He said, "What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. 21 For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, 22 thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within and defile a man."

Jesus was a very wise man when the leaders of His day were trying to catch Him out on the Sabbath and the rules He brought this passage of scripture out. We are all guilty of these things and some of us are still guilty, they all come from our deceitful heart, our unrepentant heart..

Evil thoughts

Thoughts of revenge, thoughts of how we are going to get a person back for what they did to us rather then forgive them. There are many thousands of evil thoughts that can be listed.

At one time in my life I was sleeping with a prostitute and engaged to her to be married. She was going to retire from prostitution when we married. The thought crossed my mind that we could start a brothel together and we would be able to manage it quite well. Now to you reader that is a truly evil thought, and yet that thought was possible for me in the state that I was in.

All sin starts with a thought, and you can be sure most evil gets done after people have considered the though for a while and put some planning into it.

Have you been unforgiving, are you thinking evil thoughts in some way? Today is the time to reach toward God and ask for his forgiveness and depart from it.

adulteries

It seems that the only thing wrong with the sin of adultery these days is getting caught. It seems a good plot for a movie these days, and we are all upset when the person is caught. Jesus spoke and said when a man looks at a women with a lustful thought he has already committed adultery in his heart. Many men are guilty of this, I for one have been guilty of this one.

The only way to break free of this one is to get on your knees and repent of this behaviour and seek the Lord to deliver you of this process.

Many men are caught in an addiction to pornography and I for one have had a very big struggle with this one. It's so hard wit the internet and a search engine ready to give you a picture with the click of a mouse. But to break this one a heart has to be truly repentant and God will give you victory.

fornications

It seems sex before marriage is cool these days. I was a fornicator when I met my wife. I was a Christian and she was not born again at that time but became born again shortly after. I was a sinner and sex was part of any relationship I had. The idea of having sex before marriage has been planted by the popular media, but it didn't always have to be this way. I find it quite humbling to be writing this article as I have failed in all these areas so far.

If you are in a relationship where sex is part of it but you are not married, can I advise that you go and see your pastor or your priest for counsel.

murders

Not every person has murdered and people who have must have a tremendous amount of guilt piled on their shoulders by Satan. But Jesus spoke and told us that when we hate a brother that we are murdering them in our heart. This I have been guilty of.

I had a friend that turned on me and became my enemy and I began to hate this person. I know why the Lord asks us to love and pray for our enemies, it's so out hearts will soften toward the people that are against us.

I would hate to think my relationship with anyone might send them to hell. I just read a book A Divine Revelation of Hell by Mary K Baxter and I can tell you that you don't want anyone you know going to hell, not even your enemies. I will make a better effort with my ex friend now that I have read this book.

Do you need to forgive someone?

thefts

We'd all like to think that we have grown out of theft. It was fun when we were a child but we are over it now. But did you know spending half an hour at work each day sending personal emails is a type of theft. Giving a friend a discount at your shop is theft. There are all types of theft. All of it is wrong.

Do you need to confess a theft?

covetousness

We live in a world of technology and all the latest gadgets. Keeping up with the latest is a form of covetousness. Why do we need the latest of everything. A mobile phone that is two years old is okay. The West, the UK, the USA and Australia are falling over themselves with consumerism. We having a raging thirst for possessions whilst Jesus said a mans life does not consist of the abundance if his possessions. We have to walk way from the lusts of the flesh. James says we can't be a friend of the world.

James 4:4

4 Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

We cannot covet. And coveting is simply having what your neighbour has Nearly every single Christian does a lot of this sin.

Is it time for you to repent?

wickedness

There are quite a number of things that are not for a Christian to practice; these include using mediums, clairvoyants and astrologers. We are not to participate in this or witchcraft. All of this is wickedness and out of bounds for a Christian but many Christian read there stars just for fun. God is not impressed.

deceit

I caught myself tell a lie last week. I hate lying and so does God, but the fact remains we lie. God hates deceit. The idea for the lie comes from the heart which is wicked. Jeremiah spoke of the heart.

Jeremiah 17:9

9 " The heart is deceitful above all things,

And desperately wicked;

Who can know it?

Our natural hearts are wicked and from these hearts we like to embellish a story or tell a half truth. We need to stop and tell the truth.

Pride

I have struggled with this one in my time. I read a good way to beat pride in a book the other day. It said this about humility:

"In seeking and receiving God's word to us, therefore, we must at the same time seek and receive the grace of humility. God will gladly give it to us if, trusting and waiting on him to act, we refrain from pretending we are what we know we are not, from presuming a favourable position for ourselves in any respect and from pushing or trying to override the will of others in our context." The author of "Hearing God", Dallas Willard says this is a fail-safe recipe for humility.

I bookmarked that part of the book. No one has ever given me a method to humility and yet I struggled with pride for so long.

Do you have pride issues?

I hope that paragraph helps you to.

Our hearts are wicked. We need the Word of God to wash us clean each day and we need the fire of the Holy Spirit to burn away the chaff within. I hope that my public confession of many of my sins has helped you see that we are all wicked in some way.

But Paul was only a man, and look at the heights that he climbed to!

God bless you!

Matthew shares his heart in these articles and can be found at http://www.online-prayer.net You can read more of his articles at his link below.

If you want a copy of his upcoming book of articles which will have the first sixty of the articles on this web-site called "The Musings of a Mad Prophet" please contact Matthew via email so he can contact you around February 2007 to tell you of the progress of the book.