Zebra Ministries

Good morning Zebras,

The promised continuation of the tirade I just posted.

God’s people need to learn what sin is.  Unforgiveness-sin, eating a cookie-not sin.  

Mark 7:14–23 Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this.  Nothing outside a man can make him ‘unclean’ by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him ‘unclean.’” After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable.  “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him ‘unclean’?  For it doesn’t go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods “clean.”)  He went on: “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.’”

Listen to me, understand this-we are just like the Pharisees, too focused on the outside appearance while our hearts are hard, jealous, prideful and unforgiving.  Looking good on the outside while neglecting the inside is exactly what Jesus ranted at them about. 

Matthew 23:27–28 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

Or maybe we are the disciples too dull to understand what Jesus is saying.  Greed, malice, deceit, slander, envy, pride and foolishness.  These are the things that make a man unclean. 

Honestly, I want to get a megaphone and shout it from the rooftops: God does not care about your outside appearance, that is what man cares about, God cares about your heart!!!

1 Samuel 16:7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” 

Saul, the first man chosen to be king of Israel, was a handsome man, a man who looked the part, but his good looks didn’t help him keep the job of king. When he disobeyed God’s orders he was rejected and replaced by David, a man after God’s own heart, a man who would do whatever God said.

1 Samuel 16:1 The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you grieve over Saul, since I have rejected him from being king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil, and go. I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.”

The story of Saul and David is never far from my mind. God does not need any of us, He could use a rock if He wanted to but He chooses to use us but only if we listen and obey what He is telling us to do.    

I love you Zebras, so much, appearing righteous on the outside may fool the world but it doesn’t fool God.  (And honestly, it probably doesn’t even fool them.)  So, give up, quit trying so hard, be still and get to know God and He will transform you into the person you are pretending to be. 

Love,

Jill