Who is the purest person you know (not counting Jesus)? How would you know a pure person? Is it the one with the whitest clothes or the nicest clothes? Or the one with the cleanest fingernails? (Of course not – I’m being ridiculous.)

Some religious leaders criticized Jesus and the disciples for not doing the ceremonial hand washing before meals. But Jesus knew that their rituals had nothing to do with inner purity. He called them hypocrites and quoted Isaiah to them saying, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.”   (Mark 7:6b-7 NLT)

So what does make a person pure? Jesus also said, “It’s not what goes into your body that defiles you; you are defiled by what comes from your heart.” (Mark 7:15 NLT)

We have a clean heart only by yielding to Jesus and letting him clean us up from the inside out.

Read the full passage at this link: Mark 7:1-23