GroshLink

On Sunday, Pastor Bob Ives preached on Mark 7:1-23 focusing on Tradition and Church. During the introduction, he described how ritual and tradition builds group solidarity (e.g., worship on Sunday in tie or dress reading from the NIV), but must give room for the spirit to work. Jesus, echoing the words of Isaiah, came head to head with the cleansing rituals which cleaned the outside, but did not recognize the heart as what needs to keep God's commands. Christ's teaching's bring salvation freely, an undeserved grace . . . not a list of do's and don'ts. He urged us to beware of substitutes for a relationship with God whether tradition (or on the other extreme popular culture).

What pollutes a person isn't what one swallows, but what comes out of a person. And Jesus brought healing to a leper (Mk 1:41), the unclean (5:27), sinners (2:15), Gentiles (7:24ff). In Mark 7:20-23, he commented: What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean.' For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.' Bob shrewdly noted, each time one sins in a particular area, the slower one's resistance the next time [as one becomes more comfortable with the particular sin]. Using the picture of My Heart's Christ Home, don't come forward to be part of a ritual, but open up the smelly hall closet for Jesus' cleansing. There is nothing like the washed feeling of Jesus coming through all the rooms of one's life.

Yes, My Heart's Christ Home! Afterward, I referred to this powerful picture in our Sunday morning fellowship group time on prayer and at a morning breakfast with some guys from our local assembly. Later in the morning I took time to dwell upon the new, expanded edition (1986) with the picture of an open door on the cover.  When Ellen and Hayley returned from a great 1st day of school, I pulled off the shelf the kids' version for our debrief and setting direction for the coming year.

Our inner beings were strengthened (Ephesians 3:16-17), as the Spirit of God examined the study of our minds (i.e., the control room of the house), the dining room of appetites and desires, the living room of daily Word/prayer, the workroom of the gifts and talents given for the Kingdom of God, the Rec room relationships/entertainment, the bedroom of marriage/family, and the dark, smelly hall closets of death. Personally over the course of the last day I have returned again and again to the importance of transferring the house's title to the Savior, living as a servant taking care of his creation (Thomas B. Grosh IV created in the image of God to be His child) and I had this conversation with the Ellen and Hayley.

As this new term begins, not only are our kids returning to school, but I too recommit to the School of Christ, the daily walk in the Presence of God.

Come Lord Jesus make yourself known in all aspects of my life, family, neighborhood, campus ministry, and beyond. Shape me more into your image that I might be a blessing to others, bringing to life one more shard of the Kingdom of God here on earth in anticipation of the full coming of the heavenly city. Cast out all anxiety and fear of keeping step with the spirit, by the crucifixion of my sinful nature and the bearing of that against which there is no law: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-25).