The Evil Within Us

And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness (Mark 7:20-22).

Whether people believe it or not, no agony, pain, or burden could be worse than feeling all of the evil that lies within themselves. The evil they don’t feel is even greater and worse than the wickedness they do sense. For if people were able to feel all of their evil, they would get a taste of what hell is like. So when the all-powerful God disciplines us in his mercy, he only shows us our lesser evils. He knows that if he shows us all of our wickedness, we would be ruined and would die in an instant.

According to the author of Hebrews, God shows us some of the evil within us as a part of fatherly instruction or discipline: “He punishes everyone he accepts as a son” (Hebrews 12:6). By showing us our lesser evils and disciplining us, God wants to drive out the greater evils so we will never have to see them. As Proverbs says, “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him” (Proverbs 22:15). Isn’t it true that devout and faithful parents experience more suffering, grief, and distress when their children become thieves or are otherwise bad than if their children were wounded?

Faithful parents would much rather severely discipline their children than allow them to become bad. What prevents us from feeling all the evil within us? God has established matters so that people won’t die by seeing the evil in their innermost selves. So God is the one who hides our wickedness from us. He wants us to see it only through the eyes of faith.

Adapted from Faith Alone: A Daily Devotional by Martin Luther