Why we do what we do

And He said, "What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man – Mark 7.20-23

We have to wonder sometimes how this world can be so wicked. Man does not have a great history. The cruelty of man is borne out even with a cursory look at history. We only have to go back 60-70 years to see the cruelty of Stalin’s Soviet Union and Hitler’s Germany. In the 1980s and 1990s vicious genocide took place in the Balkans. Unbelievable wickedness is reported on a wide scale basis. Only a few weeks ago the story of a naked man eating the face of another man made world news.

Just Saturday night a show in Phoenix Park turned violent with all kinds of fights, nine stabbings, and one (probably three) dead of drug overdose.

I could of course go on and on and on, but I think we have the point.

Many try to tell us that man is basically good and that there is some kind of ‘spark of divinity’ in everyone. How is ‘good’ man capable of such horrors?

We have a hint back in Jeremiah when he write ‘the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.’ The writer of Proverbs tells us to ‘guard your heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.’

Here Jesus repeats the same truth – ‘from out of the heart comes evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, and foolish. They come from the heart and defile man.’

When we get saved we still have to deal with that heart. Even though we are dead to sin it still dwells in our flesh. That is why we think the way we do, do the things we do, and respond the way we do without the Spirit’s control.

We still have those hearts. It is incumbent on us to guard our hearts with all diligence by watching what we let into our lives and have a firm reliance on the Holy Spirit to strengthen us for the task.

We often hear the phrase ‘trust your heart.’ We need to remember instead to ‘beware of your heart.