Truth Sets Free

(Jn. 8:32)

As we look at the violent chaos in different parts of our world, we begin to wonder, and ask the question: why? The answer must delve deeper. Is the violence inside us or outside us?

Let’s examine a grain of truth in that Spanish proverb: Tu enemigo peor eres tu (translate: You are your own worst enemy). We keep pointing accusing fingers at others when the fault and problem lies within ourselves. Jesus said so: “Do not judge and you will not be judged; because the judgments you give are the judgments you will get, and the amount you measure out is the amount you will be given. Why do you observe the splinter in your brother’s eye and never notice the plank in your own? How dare you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the splinter out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own? Hypocrite! Take the plank out of your own eye first, and then you will see clearly enough to take the splinter out of your brother’s eye” (Mt. 7:1-5).

Sometimes people make lots of fuss about the kinds of food we eat. Jesus answers that problem in the gospel of Matthew: “He called the people to him and said, ‘Listen and understand. What goes into the mouth does not make a man unclean; it is what comes out of the mouth that makes him unclean…. Can you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes through the stomach and is discharged into the sewer? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and it is these that make a man unclean. For from the heart come evil intentions: murder, adultery, fornication, theft, perjury, slander. These are the things that make a man unclean. But to eat with unwashed hands does not make a man unclean’” (Mt. 15:10-20). These evil intentions and hatred in your heart cause all the trouble in the world, the evacuation problems, the needless loss of precious lives, the human rights violations, and in the end will bring us, if we do not repent, to the eternal fires of hell.