LIVING INSIDE OUT

There are two ways to live life, and if we want to please God, we can try either path.

The first, and most common, is OUTSIDE IN. By controlling the outer shell of our lives we think that we can control our behavior. Eventually, we hope that by controlling our outward behavior, it will soak into our spirits. We know this method well: it’s how we were raised, right? We started with laws and fences and outward controls. That’s how God started with humans, too. He gave us the Law.

But no one can ever really control himself or herself so well on the outside that it ever really soaks in deep enough to please God and take us to perfection. A religious spirit tells us that it is possible to be good enough, and we often fall into a legalistic pattern of trying to please God in the flesh, but the Bible tells us over and over that it simply can’t be done. A Religious Spirit cannot please God. While an outward focus can create some pockets of morality, and virtually every religion in the world follows an outside in focus, it will do you no good eternally.

The second way of living is INSIDE OUT, and it is the way that is taught over and over in the New Testament. When the Holy Spirit lives inside me, and I simply listen to his voice and obey him, he leads me into right doctrine, right living, and right attitudes. I let go of trying to change my outward behavior—if I could just quit that addictive habit, or I am going to start “acting” (notice that word) nicer to people, or I’m going to be more disciplined in some area of my life. Instead, I relax, I listen, I join in on the Sabbath rest, I say yes to Jesus, and I live in peace.

Looking at someone on the outside, you can’t immediately tell whether they are living outside in or inside out lives. Either way, they might say “No” to that second cookie, or read their Bibles and spend two hours in prayer. Sometimes, we can’t even tell ourselves whether it was the Holy Spirit or our sense of guilt and compulsion that made us do or not do something. But over the long haul, outside in living yields certain fruits, and none of them are good. And over the long haul, inside out living yields a beautiful harvest of traits, and all of them are good.