What’s Inside of Me? by Dave
Wilson with Lance Kjeldgaard
Lance and his wife Linda are team leaders for our
International Friendship Connection (IFC) here at Trinity Church. They reach
out to the international students and scholars who attend some of our local
universities. Students leave their home and families from all around the world
to come here and study, and IFC becomes a surrogate family who loves and
blesses them in the name of the Lord.
Matthew 14-16
Lance and his team works
with a crowd very similar to Jesus in these stories. They all come from
different cultures with different languages and divergent ways of thinking
about spiritual things. Some are seeking a sign or a miracle that proves the
existence of God. Others seek truth from their heritage and ancestry by
following the faith of their fathers. And still others just want to be a part
of the crowd and will never commit to anything. However, there is something
that all cultures have in common; and that is a code of morality. In western
cultures we deal with ‘guilt’ when we break our moral code. In eastern cultures
they consider the ‘shame’ that a breach in the code will bring upon their
family. In chapter 15 of Matthew, Jesus helps to identify what actually defiles
a person from God’s perspective. What makes them ‘clean’ or ‘unclean’, kosher
or treif, halal or haraam.
Jesus is known to break
some of the man enhanced laws which define ‘unclean’, like touching a leper.
However, it is interesting to note that if an ordinary Jewish man were to touch
a leper, he would be considered unclean along with the leper, but when Jesus
touched the leper, the leper became clean.
At times we see Jesus
interact with crowds and then there are these brief encounters with
individuals. With each encounter, something deep within the character and
person of Jesus comes out to glorify and reveal the very nature of a loving
heavenly Father who can make all things clean.
As Jesus says in Matthew
15:10-20, “…it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person… but what
comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart; and this defiles a person. For
out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality” and
the list goes on. As you read this text, think about how the Lord can use us to
‘make things clean’ with our service to each other and to the world around us.
