Verses 1-8
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It is worthless to God if we try to serve Him by following human ideas or opinions of religion.
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Serve God by following the Word—nothing else!
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And appearing religious, but lacking obedience to the Word, is a waste of time and energy.
Verses 9-13
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A human tradition is anything that prevents or hinders you from anything that the Bible says.
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Do not follow teaching that causes you to ignore reading and doing what is in God's Word.
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A modern example of this would be, for instance, teaching that tells you it's ok to divorce your spouse, if he/she is resisting your faith in Christ, so as to protect your faith. This would cause a person to disobey the Word on grounds of a teaching that comes from human opinion.
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Verses 14-23
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Food, drink, animals, physical materials...natural things in the world, that are created by God, cannot make you sinful. How you choose to think and live is what causes you to sin or not.
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See Romans 14:14.
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Focus on making your thoughts and actions godly, rather than nit-picking small issues that don't matter.
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Verses 24-30
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See teaching on Matthew 15:21-28 for more details.
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Verse 24. Jesus had to enter this house for a specific purpose. He needed to focus on something critical.
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This is why, at first, Jesus had to ignore this Gentile women. It's not that He didn't care. But He couldn't let one person interrupt an essential task.
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There are times when you will have to focus on critically important matters. In these times, it's ok to need to ignore others temporarily.
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Once Jesus had a moment to answer her, what He said helped to reveal her faith. It was as though He tested her.
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If you want to know whether you should spend time with someone, to help them, don't commit too quickly. Try to see if they really care. Look for belief in them.
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Don't help someone who won't truly appreciate help.
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Verses 31-37
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This is an example of how bizarre some of Jesus' miracles were. The fact that He removed this man from a crowd, put His fingers in his ears, spat, and then touched his tongue...no two healings were the same.
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The unique differences for tasks are revealed by the Spirit. We must be obedient to these specifics if we will see results.
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Verse 37. And because Jesus was obedient to the Father's unique instructions, He did all things well.
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Understand that how God will have you help someone may seem strange at times, but perfect obedience always leads to perfect results.
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Learn to hear the Spirit, obey, and you too will do all things well.
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