Clean and unclean. What does that really mean? Am I unclean because of the rapes and sexual assaults on my body?
Can the act of another person relegate me to a life that is not worth anything? A life that is lowly and unclean?
Absolutely not!
The crimes that don’t come out of an act of my heart, are not my crimes. What do I mean? The predators who hurt me cannot change my heart through their actions; that act is reserved for me. Only I have control over what my heart chooses.
Will I hate? Will I envy? Will I seek revenge?
These are questions that my heart must determine which path to take.
The acts done against my body DO NOT make me unclean. The person doing the acts are the ones that are not clean and their hearts are embittered and hate. They need expungement of the ugliness, not me.
14 Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. 15 Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.”
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I love the words of Jesus. He makes it so clear. The BS rules of man cannot touch His kingdom laws that are in effect every day of our lives.
Why would I choose the religious made-up rules of man, when I can live out the law of God?
My understanding is this: It doesn’t matter what has happened to my physical body. All of those acts that were done to me do not defile me, it defiles the person doing them.
20 He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. 21 For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22 adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23 All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”
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My job is too keep my heart clean. It’s not to undo the acts that were done against me, that’s impossible. What is possible is for me to ask God to help my heart stay away from those things that would defile me, making me unclean.
The rapes and mayhem I’ve lived through hurt a lot. I believed I was unclean and so slept with thieves, as the saying goes, and kept company with some pretty bad people all because I thought I truly had no higher value.
That was a lie. I no longer live with that lie.