Life, as it is meant to be

It seems to me that as Christians we concern ourselves with the exterior expressions of our Christian life more than the interior changes and growth. The exterior is easier to discern. We have become performance oriented rather than heart oriented. But I think the heart is more important. True spiritual development must focus on the inner life. When we get the inner life right the outer life will follow.

Jesus came to change our hearts not just to change our behavior. We think that Jesus came to make us good, but he came to make us alive! We were dead in our trespasses and sins but are made alive in Jesus.

If Jesus is going to make us alive then we must make the journey through our hearts. We struggle in this. If we chose to make this journey with him we discover coldness, lusts, wrong desires, bad attitudes, sorrows and deadness within our hearts. We learn that we have living our lives out of these things rather than out of Jesus.

If we decide to really life the life of Jesus then we place all of our lives before him, walk through these wastelands of the heart and submit to the painful spiritual surgery of their cleansing. Now we really begin to live our lives as Jesus intends. We live out of his heart, walk in his love, display his peace and celebrate the joy of the Lord as it becomes our strength.