He rode valiantly into battle, his decaying hands fastened to the reins of his war horse, unable to feel them but intent on routing his unwary enemy. There in 1177, at the Battle of Montgisard, King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem and his outnumbered army routed the unsuspecting Saladin and his 26,000 soldiers. In the eyes of both Christians and Muslims, the young king’s leprosy was a curse from God, but that day on Israel’s coastal plain, God showed His favor on this leper king by granting him one of the most lopsided victories in history.
In Matthew 15, Jesus once again turned the Pharisees’ expectations upside-down with His pronouncement that it is not what goes into a person that makes him unclean, but what is already in his heart. It isn’t the food you eat or even your physical health that makes you unclean. Rather, it is the sin abiding in your heart. Dear friend, are you willing to consider that maybe your religion is inside-out? Like the Pharisees, could it be that you have become so focused on outward rituals that you have neglected the purity of your heart? If so, then Jesus—the one who made lepers and the demon-oppressed clean—is ready to cleanse you from the inside out!
Yours in Christ,
Pastor Mike