How Is Your Heart? Matthew 15:1-20

Roses, chocolates, gifts, and special meals are traditions that say “I Love you,” especially on Feb 14, Valentine's Day. Like many of our celebrated and commercialized traditions, Valentine's day has its roots in pagan traditions that were later adopted by the Catholic church as a Christian tradition named after Saint Valentine. The red heart is the most recognized symbol of this tradition celebrating love and romance.

When it comes to the heart and man’s traditions, Jesus had a lot to say.  In the book of Matthew, the religious leaders, Pharisees, and teachers of the religious law asked Jesus, “Why do your disciples break the traditions of the elders, and not wash their hands before eating?”  Jesus, as His usual custom, answered them with a question. He asks them why they allow their traditions to supersede God’s commands and gives them an example. Under God’s law, they were to honor their mother and father including taking care of them and their expenses as they aged. They had a loophole in their man-made traditions that allowed a person to declare that their resources/money was devoted to God and not use it for their parent's welfare. Later they could cancel that declaration and avoid their responsibility.

Jesus goes on to say, “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person, but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”

Jesus always came against man-made traditions that superseded God’s intentions for man. In Jesus’s day, the religious leaders cared more about their traditions being kept than the welfare of their people. God is more concerned with the condition of our hearts and not what we do out of tradition. Going to church may be a tradition for you, but how is your heart? The Bible tells us to guard our hearts and minds, hold onto God’s Word in our hearts and live, and to trust in the Lord with all our hearts and not depend on our own understanding.

God knows the intentions of our hearts. The Bible says that a good heart produces good and an evil heart produces evil. When we receive Jesus into our hearts we become a new creation. God forgives us of our sins, cleanses our hearts, and puts His Spirit in us so that we can start a growing relationship with Him. When it comes to love, no man-made tradition can compare to God’s greatest love gift, His Son, Jesus Christ. If you have never accepted Jesus, today is a great day to do so.  (John 3:16, Prov. 3:5, Matthew 12:35; John 1:12)

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