He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come . . . sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.” (Mark 7:20-23) Yes, it is true, we are what we eat. As our cells reproduce minute by minute the food we ingest becomes the energy for the body's process of celluar reproduction. The kinds of food we eat produce the energy, proteins, carbohydrates, and everything else the body needs to contiue to function in a healthy fashion. In Mark 7 however, Jesus is not saying we are not changed and influenced by what we see, hear and even eat. What He is saying is that it is the emphasis we place upon waht is putside the body that causes us to neglect insides . . .the heart. What we take in . . . what we call important and vital to our living . . . influences our inner being. Placing importance upon things . . . food, culture (both in the world and in the church) , and what others think about us can and will change our way of thinking and how we live day to day. Our hearts are the C.P.U.s of our bodies. Like a computer, what we download can corrupt our system, causing virus anfter virus to damage us until we no longer function as we were designed. Many times it ends in a complete meltdown or crash. So how do we handle all the various cultural influences we see and hear each and every day? How do we decipher what is good? Whether wewant to admit it or not, we hear the words to the music, we capture the visions from TV, videos, and movies, and we get a bit too comfortable with the office jokes, water fountain rumors, and even the off-color slang used these days. Fellow believers, we must defend our hearts ! We have to have a strategy to filter what we see, hear, and touch. Things may be lawful, but everything is not good and even too much of a good thing can be dangerous! (1 Corinthians 10:23) We must be on guard . . . for ourselves and those under our influence.