Clean Hands & Dirty Hearts

"Because of Jesus' sacrificial love, we are safe to begin a process of being completely truthful about ourselves. We are met by a capable physician who comes to us and says, 'I already know.' When Jesus asks the disciples questions, he is not seeking to gain information. Rather, by asking, he seeks to trigger a process of self-understanding... We can rest assured that we will not surprise our Master with anything he will discover in our souls. So why keep it hidden? Why live with it anymore? Why continue a divided life between the outside (pretense) and inside (reality)?

"We can trust God's loving pursuit of us because he does this not merely to show us the weight of our inner lives, but to liberate us from it with the cleansing assurance of his love." —Hans F. Bayer, A Theology of Mark, 71, 72.