It Goes Back to Love!

Today’s Reading:  Mark 7:1-23

So how many things do we do because of traditions?  Now don’t get me wrong I love traditions and I see nothing wrong with most traditions, but when we let the tradition get in the way of the leading of God is when there becomes a problem.  Isn’t that what Jesus was trying to tell the Pharisees, but they had on spiritual blinders and could not see what Jesus was saying.  While I do like traditions, I do think sometimes why we, as Christians, do some of the things that we do.  Do we do it because that is how it has always been done or do we do it because it is the way of Christ?  So what really matters?   I think Jesus said it best when he said it is what is in a man’s heart that is important.  So no matter what we do on the outside, no matter how many good deeds we do, no matter how many rules we follow, it is what is in our heart that matters?  Yes, I believe it is!  To me all this goes back to ‘love’----it’s all about love.  When you have the love of Christ in your heart, than you don’t need traditions to get things right, you don’t need to do good deeds, you don’t need to follow the rules because when you have the true love of Christ in your heart, you automatically do all these things without even thinking.  You do them because it is what Jesus would do, you do them because you want to do good, you   want to follow rules---so what’s the difference.  When you do all these things without the love of Jesus, you are doing them for man, for show, but when you do things out of love, you do it in service to Jesus and you don’t care who sees or knows.  We have no other choice but to listen to Jesus, there is no other way, we have to live the way he has showed us to live, we have to love and love as much like Jesus as we possibly can!