What’s on the inside?

FORUM FILE PHOTO
Pastor Dale Baker First Baptist Church

From trees and lights, to pretty gift wrapping, special Christmas outfits and the perfect family photos we spend a lot of time thinking about how things look during the holidays. For sure, some people take their Christmas decorating to a pretty over the top level, but if we’re honest, we all care about how things look on the outside, and that’s not just at Christmas time either.

When we look only at the outside of both our lives and other’s lives we set ourselves up for all sorts of problems, like compassion, jealousy, discouragement and pride. You are so much more than how you or your life appears on the outside. Your Christmas outfit or presents or even your family don’t define you.

Jesus actually had quite a bit to say about people who cared more about how they looked than the condition of their hearts. During Jesus’ day, there was a group of religious people called the Pharisees. They were very committed to following Jewish laws and teaching. Although their laws and teaching came from a desire to obey God, the Pharisees had distorted those laws and teachings. Through Jesus’ life, he constantly called out the pharisees for their hypocrisy and for the way they used their laws to justify mistreating people in the name of God.

Matthew 23:25-28 I know Jesus was talking to the Pharisees here, but I’ve been guilty of this. Maybe you have, too. There have been plenty of times when on the outside, my life looked great … but inside, I was having onto anger, greed, pride or un-forgiveness. If you want to clean, Jesus says to wash the inside first. Then the outside will become clean too. We can’t start on the outside, hoping that if we put on a good show we’ll eventually figure out how to live up the person we’ve been pretending to be. What’s happening in our hearts is more important than how our lives look on the outside, then we should probably spend some time examining what’s in there.

This Christmas, how’s your heart? Is it focused on you, or is it considering others? Is it angry and impatient or is it gentle and kind? Is it anxious and worried, or is it at peace? You might look pretty put together on the outside but what going on inside?

Every time you see Christmas decoration, let it remind you that the inside matters more than what’s on the outside.