Getting Beneath the Surface”
We have to be clear about what it means to help the people God has placed in our lives. When it comes to helping people, we often address the surface level of the problem but never get down to the heart of the matter.
When someone is grieving, we might hand him a book that helped us in a difficult moment.
But how many of us would take the time to really invest in his life?
Would we listen on a consistent basis and offer help whenever we find a need that we are able to meet?
Or when we learn that a friend is struggling with sin, we are quick to explain why that sin is harmful and tell her we will pray for.
But how many of us would walk with her as she works through the issues involved?
It’s not that Christians are uncaring. Very often, we really do want to help the people around us however we can, but we get so focused on finding a quick solution to the external behavior that we overlook the real problem.
Here’s an example. If a friend struggles with anger, we find out what makes him angry, and then keep him away from the things that provoke his anger (e.g., don’t drive during rush hour, interact with your boss as little as possible, avoid talking politics).
But changing the external situation doesn’t change his heart. In reality, his anger is rooted in his heart, and that anger will find a way to express itself even if his circumstances change.
When Jesus’s disciples started eating without going through the necessary cleansing rituals, the Pharisees accused them of defiling themselves.
But Jesus’s response in Mark 7 calls us to look beyond the external to what is going on in the heart.
Every struggle with sin that we could possibly encounter in our own lives or in the lives of the people around us are represented in the list
Jesus offered: evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. Jesus said that these things come from within.
Whatever help we can offer people who are struggling with sin has to be aimed at transforming hearts, not behavior.
* Why is it essential to get to the heart of the problem rather than merely addressing the circumstances and behavior?
““Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.) He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.””
Mark 7:18-23 NIV
