Mark 7:14-23
Out of the Heart
14 Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. 15 Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.” [16]
17 After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. 18 “Are you so dull?”he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? 19 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.)
20 He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. 21 For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22 adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23 All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”
John 13:31-35
New Command to Love One Another
31When he was gone, Jesus said, "Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him. 32If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once.
33"My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.
34"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
Matthew 22:34-40
The Greatest Commandments
34Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:
36"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
The heart is what makes relationships with others...It is because of the love we have in our hearts...Out of the heart comes both our love and our relationships with others...These are very good things...We have this free choice this freedom and free will from God to choose love...
Everyday things go in our hearts and things come out of our hearts...As we become adults, what goes "into" our hearts (and minds) does not make us good or necessarily evil...The heart holds some mystique, as a part of our self..It is up to us and our hearts and minds to interpret what we hear from the outward world -and give meaning to it...It is up to each of us to take and make each thought (we hear), or feeling (we have), or sensation (we get) and make it good or bad...Or we can just drop that thought or feeling and let it go...The heart then is making choices....What goes into the heart and mind does not make us good or bad...How we and what we choose do with our thoughts, our feelings, our sensations is what makes us who and what we are...So, it is what come out...Or as Jesus says it is what comes "out of the heart" and how we have interpreted and put meaning to those things is what makes all the difference...
What we make of these outward thoughts and outward things we hear and see -is also how people see us and perceive us...Jesus understood this in His new command...These interpretations we do with our choices becomes who we are...What comes out of the heart can come negative things like evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly...All these evils come from inside (and how we interpreted what we have heard and seen) -makes a man unclean and defiled...But also from the heart good things come...We have the freedom to choose evil or good -positive or negative...Things like our relationship with others, our spouses, our families, and our friends...So out of the heart is what we choose...Out of the heart flows our personal love...In the case of love, we have chosen the good in life...We have chosen the positive...We have chosen the Truth...We have chosen the Light...When we choose these things we are choosing Love, and Love is a relationship...It takes at least two to love...
When Jesus gave His disciples His new command to Love one another...He told them, as I have Loved you, you must love one another...The relationship they had (and would have) with each other would show other people that they were still His disciples...They had to love each other before others would stand up and take note that they had been with and had been taught by Jesus...When love comes out of their hearts and they can love one another, then other people will see that are and were in fact, Jesus' disciples...By others seeing this love and the relationship they had with Him and their fellow disciples, would help the gospel spread...
Jesus tells us that the two Greatest Commandments are based on love...We are to love our LORD, and we are to love our neighbors...Loving our LORD and our neighbor show that we have a relationship with our Father in heaven and we have a relationship with our neighbors...By showing this love to our Father and to our neighbors, we show others that we are His disciples...Jesus shows us the importance of love and relationships in His new command...