He Said, She Said.

I wish I could say that I love people. If only I could have an enduring, constant love for people-- a love that survives in me regardless of capricious circumstances. But to put it simply, I don't. I feel hurt easily by the piercing words of people. I am quick to gain a bitter heart, and even quicker to suspend my relationships with those that I have lost a sense of love towards.

What's worse, is that I continually count myself blameless. I attribute wrongness and sinfulness to my neighbors, abandoning the idea that I may have my own transgressions to resolve.

Mark chapter 7 speaks about the traits that defile us.

"For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these evil things, come from within and they defile a person."


As I read this passage, I mistakenly began pardoning myself from most (all) of them:

1. Evil thoughts: I never think about physically harming anyone or pushing the annoying girl in the cubical beside me off a cliff -- Nah, I'm good.
2. Sexual immorality: I'm waiting til marriage (or maybe you are married so you're off the hook)
3. Theft: Goodness! I don't go around robbing banks or stealing money from anyone!
4. Murder: Geez, this passage is for messed up people, not me.
5. Adultery: I'm not even married, I can cross that one off
6. Coveting: Other people have nicer things than me, but I'm pretty happy with what I have
7. Wickedness: This one is silly, I don't have a wigi board or dress up in black cloaks and chant scary things
8. Deceit: I don't tell lies that really matter 
9. Sensuality: Ok, that's just weird.
10. Envy: Again, pretty happy with my own property and belongings. 
11. Slander: I never just make up things about people that aren't true!
12. Pride: No way, I don't brag about how awesome I am.
13. Foolishness: No, I think I make pretty wise decisions for the most part, as long as it benefits me.

I can, however, think of some friends who struggle with some of these. They really need to evaluate their character and focus on living more sinless lives.

I hope if you've made it this far, you are sensing my sarcastic aura. Instead of bypassing these sins that we can easily justify ourselves out of, I challenge us to dissect our hearts and fess up to our fleshly defeat.

1. Evil thoughts: Negative thoughts consume our mental and emotional processes. There is no denying that much. Maybe we aren't secretly wishing for a person to step in front of a speeding semi-truck, but we surely contemplate how things would be if that person would just move away, switch jobs, or fail at something, giving us the chance to be satisfied in their short-comings, puff out our chests, and proclaim conquer over them. We form these thoughts when we abandon the commandment that we are to form the Body of Christ. "But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it." 1 Corinthians 12.
2. Sexual immorality: Although sexual sin is pretty black and white, there are some grey areas that deserve recognition as potential places for us to fall. For instance, there are many movies (more than most) that explicitly put sex on display. And lets be honest, the people having sex in movies usually aren't married to one another. That wouldn't make for a box office film. Allowing these scenes to make an impression in our thoughts is dangerous. The image alone taints our thinking and scripture is pretty clear that even the thoughts of certain sins are sinful themselves. Secondly, porn is huge in America. And it goes way beyond internet sites. The way we dress, the sexting, the dirty snapchatting-- it's porn. Look at it however you want, but it is nothing short of creating a sexual desire in another human being.
3. Theft: Pirated movies and illegal downloading of music are only a couple examples of how theft is evident in ways short of robbing banks. But I believe it goes even further than that. Simply taking credit for an idea that was not original to us is theft. One way that I struggle with theft is by demanding attention from others. Instead of giving someone the praise they deserve, I am quick to act as if I deserve the same praise. So I theoretically "steal" their 5 minutes of fame. This can also be done by simply discrediting their accomplishment to make it seem less worthy to be praised.
4. Murder: How often do we kill the spirits of those around us? How frequently do we extinguish the joy of others because we are annoyed or jealous of whatever it is they are rejoicing in? 
5. Adultery: Scripture is clear about even when we lust, we have created adultery in our hearts. But aside from that, I believe we are constantly committing adultery against our Holy God. We may not have carved wooden idols, but we create idols in our heart. Money, sex, school, our job, our friends-- they all rise above The Almighty as they consume our thoughts. They become our god, leaving us with a heart that is adulterous to our heavenly groom.
6. Coveting: The consuming desire to have something other than what the will of your life has given you is covetous. Whether you see the things you want in another person or if they are ideas you have conjured up on your own, we dismiss our calling by wishing for a life other than ours. It doesn't have to be a house or a car. I confess that I covet a married life. Not that there is a specific marriage or man that I wish to have, but the idea of a marriage instead of singleness. But that is not my season right now. The problem with coveting is that we forfeit where the Lord has us at this moment and the way He is using our current season to work for His kingdom.
7. Wickedness: We can go back to the creating idols that become our gods for this one. But we can take it a step further. There are many examples of modern day witchcraft. One of them being manipulation. To whatever degree, we are all guilty. Allowing someone to believe a lie to be truth is wicked. Maybe it's not telling our parents the whole truth. Or maybe it's telling someone you "forgot" to do something, when in reality you just didn't want to.
8. Deceit: This one is incredibly justifiable. "Well, I didn't tell him the truth because I didn't want to hurt his feelings." What is more precarious about deceit, is that we make it socially acceptable. We've created phrases like "little white lie," and we lose sight of just how sinful those little lies are. Essentially, we have ourselves fooled, which is a wide open gate to desolation.
9. Sensuality: One thing I am very passionate about is the way women dress. I take stand that it is a woman's responsibility to dress in a way that does not create temptation in a man's heart. Whether it's yoga pants, a low cut shirt, a thong bikini, shorts that are longer from left to right than they are from top to bottom, or clothes that are so tight that it leaves no imagination of the what the body beneath looks like. If a man lusts after us, and we are dressed in a fashion that provoked his thoughts, we are of even greater fault than he.
10. Envy: Let's not limit ourselves to defining envy as only the desire for material things. We envy so much more than that. I could list a million things (grades, looks, relationships, etc.) but you know better than anyone else what you envy. The downfall of envy is that it leads to destruction. We create a state in our hearts to destroy or take the thing that we are envious of.
11. Slander: Many are deceived that slander is speaking of things that are not of truth. We fail to realize that factual information can be used in a slanderous way as well. Maybe we have a friend that struggles in a certain area of their life, and instead of praying and encouraging him or her, we are quick to point out their flaw and use it against them, usually for our own gain. 
12. Pride: In my opinion, pride is the root of all sin. Pride will lead us to become envious and jealous which will then encourage us to covet. A covetous heart is likely to murder the spirits of those around, or have evil thoughts toward those who may be praised for the things that you pridefully think belong to you. Pride is SO SO dangerous. Proverbs 16:18 says "Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit will fall." I believe this without a doubt. The problem with pride is that we are too prideful to admit that we are guilty. Not even to the extent of admitting it to others-- we fail to recognize our prideful spirits at the start. The most appalling form of pride is spiritual pride. When we put ourselves in a place that is of greater worth than our brothers and sister's in Christ, we become someone that God spits from His mouth, rather than considered 'more holy.'
13. Foolishness: Waiting til deadlines approach to begin a project, not considering repercussions from indulging in our fleshly desires, and a big one: not thinking before speaking. 

As I dismembered each of these, I came to the realization that these are not ludicrous accusations that do not apply to me. In fact, they are incredibly accurate in depicting the truth of the person I pretend not to be. Then I am left contemplating why I thought to have a prerogative to assign these offenses to anyone but myself! 

The one trait that belongs just as well in this passage that was not mentioned is gossip. 

Gossip is detrimental to friendship. It will absolutely tear people apart. But honestly, it's not the words. It's not even about whether or not the person ever finds out about the hurtful words we've said. It's about the state we put our hearts in when we allow ourselves to structure a form of hatred toward our brothers and sisters.

Why? That's the question. Why do we thrive off the opportunities to gossip? Then we cleverly cover up what we know is sinful by renaming it. You know, we are "venting." Or what I love to hear in the Christian community is, "Oh, we need to pray for her (so let me tell you every juicy detail)." God sees right through that. And honestly, everyone else does, too.

I decided to tear apart the idea of gossip. Surprisingly, the things I found to be reasons we engage in such pompous behavior were very reflective of the very things Mark 7 talked about with that list of things that defile a person.

Origins of Incentive:


Jealousy

Jealousy is prosperous in our fleshly lives.. Earlier, I mentioned the Body of Christ. We fail at forming unity with our companions. When is the last time you rejoiced in someone else's succession? Maybe we're so wrapped up in our singleness, that we can't delight in our friends' engagements. So instead, we become envious of their attainments. Or maybe we are so concerned with our insecurity, that we pounce on the first opportunity to dismiss the attributes our friends possess that we lack.


Social Bonds
A few spiteful words shared in confidence can give us such a boost. Shared dislikes create stronger bonds than shared likes. Having someone "validate" your thoughts and then "support" you by also engaging in speaking these slanderous words. Gossiping forms a sense of trust. However, this is not in line with the expectations of a Christian friendship-- a friendship between people who are living by the example Christ set for us. This type of bond is foolish and leads to increased evil thoughts towards the subject of conversation.


Rank Climbing
Gossips aids in rank ascension. We talk about our contenders' defeat and calamity and we savor the misfortune of others. We want to remain as the favored friend; we feed our pride in being unparalleled by stigmatizing any threat. We will even go so far as to manipulate the truth in a wicked fashion in order to maintain lead status. And if that fails to hinder the rise of our rival, we will become deceitful in relaying information to others about the subject matter.


Projection
We may attribute one of our own faults, perhaps one we are in denial about, to someone else. Maybe no one will notice our weakness if we encourage others to seek out that flaw in someone else. Maybe we covet the fact that someone is stronger in an area than we are, so we seek to destroy or murder the proposition that this person is well fortified where we are feeble.


Gossip is a perilous pastime. It can quickly lead to wariness and wonderment of the gossipers character. Sadly, everyone struggles with it, including myself. My failure to love those who have wounded me, leaves my heart in a state that persuades me to speak condescendingly about whoever it may be. But gossip does not have to be a part of our lives or daily routine. The first step is to stop feeling like a victim. Once we recognize our reasoning (jealousy, social bond, rank climbing, projection), we can begin to identify where WE are out of line, not someone else. The vivacity we possess for tearing each other down can be transferred. We can instead create enthusiasm for getting to the core of our hearts and focus on where we may be falling short. We could no longer be an adulterer of God's commandments; rather, we can take the opportunity to show each other the love of Christ. The love that we do not have on our own, but that God has instilled in us for our friends, our enemies, and everyone in between.



"Please lay down your arrows, for they're sure to pierce the skin. And water from a broken well, will make you thirst again." -Jimmy Needham, Dearly Loved