Have you ever bitten into an apple only to discover it was rotten? Or been served a beautifully prepared meal that looked incredible—but didn’t taste nearly as good?

Our culture is obsessed with optics and appearances. There’s an entire industry devoted to making food look good to eat. Never mind that many of the tricks involved make the food inedible—the goal is appearance, not substance.

How much of what we do is for appearances?
How much energy do we spend managing optics?
How many things do we do simply because of how they make us look?

Let me remind us this morning: looking good is a poor substitute for being good. Presenting well is not the same as living well. Caring for our bodies is virtuous—it’s stewardship—but let’s be sure we’re tending to our souls, our hearts, and our minds as well.

Get it?

“There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.”
Mark 7:15

If nothing outside of us can defile us, then nothing outside of us can make us holy, acceptable, or beautiful in God’s eyes either. That’s an inside job.

LORD, grant us clean hands and pure hearts.

Good morning. I love you all.

ihs,
just adam