“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’.” (Mark 7:20-23)
There are only two groups of people. You either fit into one group or the other. There is no middle ground.
One group of people believes that there is no God, there is no Creator. To them God isn’t. These people believe that our personalities are formed by society and culture. If a person is hostile, rebellious, selfish, dishonest, or angry it is because their needs have not been met by the world somewhere in their past or they’ve been hurt. This group of people does not believe in the concept of sin.
This first group of people believes that in order to help someone who is struggling, you need to unravel their life like a tangled web of memories trying to find the root of when all the problems began. That process can take years. Because this group believes there is no God, they think there is no one to save them and they need to save themselves.
The second group of people believes that there is a God and that He is the Creator of all things. To them God IS. They agree with the first group that there is a dark side to human behavior. What they disagree with is the origin of that dark behavior. They use the Bible as their guidebook. The Bible puts all the words used to describe the dark side of human behavior into one heading. That heading is sin.
In the Mark passage above Jesus tells us that what comes out of a man is what makes him unclean. What comes out of a person originates in that person. Paul describes what our sin nature looks like in Galatians 5:19-21: The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.
Society only reveals what is already inside of us. There is no human remedy for sin. We need a Savior. If what is inside of us is sin, and our undesirable behavior is sin, that’s good news! Sin is the simplest thing in the world to deal with. Jesus Christ is our Savior and died to cleanse us from all sin.
Where are you? Do you believe that God is the Creator of all things or do you believe that He isn’t God at all? You will need to decide for yourself. Did everything just fall into place or is there a Person who is indescribable in human terms that made us and has the power to save us from our natural dark side. What you decide will affect how you live. Ask God to reveal himself to you through his Word. Read Job Chapter 38 and read how God speaks of Himself as Creator.