Why are we our own worst enemy?

Charles Spurgeon, who was one of the great preachers and was known to be blunt, he once said: “Beware of no man more than of yourself; we carry our own worst enemies within us.” I contemplated on those words thinking about those areas of my own life where I have been my worst enemy. Is it possible that there is something about us that enjoys rebellion? If you tell a toddler: don’t touch the bowl, it is heavy it may fall on you. The toddler will most definitely want to touch it. Is it what happened to Adam and Eve when God forbade them to touch the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden? Our readings today are all unified in their message about our need to observe/ to keep God’s word/commandments so that we may live in God’s grace and favor. It sounded like an earnest plea to sincerely follow God’s way. Psalm 15 provided us with an opening, telling us the profile of a worthy person: “who may dwell in your tabernacle?” The answer was: “Whoever leads a blameless life and does what is right, who speaks the truth from his heart.” Sometimes we need to be blunt, to rip the bandage off be honest and live in the truth. So where are we in this journey of following Christ? Leading a blameless life? Doing what is right? Are we speaking the truth from our hearts? Reality is we fall short of this godly expectation! Only in Christ Jesus, have we forgiveness of our sins, and the divine grace to help us do what pleases God which ultimately is for our benefit and advantage. From the beginning, God’s design was perfect. I don't mean it exactly like the Children's movie Zootopia depicting a world where carnovores and Herbivores live in harmony, maybe sort of similar. I mean the world of Adam and Eve prior to sin. There was Kingdom Shalom: That peace that surpasses all understanding. There was truth. Truth without competition from the false; what is right was right. As we heard last week, we see a range of opinions often made of false truths. Our rebellion gets to twist what is right: we call the wrong to be right, and the right to be wrong! That’s how we have messed up, knowingly or unknowingly. A typical example of it is in our Gospel lesson. The Pharisees and Scribes asked Jesus: “Look at what your disciples did. They ate without washing their hands! Now why would you allow that?” There is a children's Cartoon where a sister keeps snitching on her brothers: "Mum! Look at what Phineas and Ferb have done!" That is what the Pharisees were doing. This was not only snitching on the disciples but worse: they were trying to find fault, to pick a quarrel with Jesus their Master. We often see this behavior often amongst siblings or work colleagues, where there is competition. The Bible is clear on the subject: Wickedness/ malice is wrong. The issue at hand, was that: unwashed hands equaled defiled hands according to ceremonial laws. Jesus did not deny the charge; however, he directed their attention to much weightier matters of defilement: What comes from the heart: Wickedness, adultery, theft, murder, fornication. All these evil things come from the heart and defile a person. That’s what should be the real issue: the truth. You see by concentrating on what’s not important, we are in fact distracted from what’s really important: The truth. The evil one is smart…The truth gets ignored or twisted! The evil one knows that if we can just believe we are good people, we are all set! Nooo! We still need Jesus our Savior to melt our heart of rock and give us a smooth heart, a sensitive heart in tune with God’s heart! If only we knew deep down in our hearts that Jesus Christ died on the cross to save us from such things that can easily clog our hearts… (unforgiveness, malice, our tongue that can easily slip and hurt others…) Knowing that when we are in Christ, we have victory over carnal thinking like saying NO to immoderate desires. We get to be against any thinking that uses principles of this world instead of principles of the Kingdom of Heaven. James reminded us: “Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers.” Evidently the danger is that, we can quickly become hypocrites if we advocate one way and acts another. Unfortunately, we have done that often without even realizing. We need to walk the talk, starting with me, the preacher. We need to be blunt with ourselves because we are constantly inches away from heart defilement. Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on us, sinners!

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