5 Tips for Living from The Inside Out

Summer is here, and our family loves this time of year because it means that we can be outdoors and enjoy the sunshine.  My wife and I have six kids, so spending some of the day outside is crucial for our mental health!  Every morning, we face a similar routine with getting our kids out of bed, feeding them breakfast and then getting the questions…

Can we go play outside now?  When can we go outside?  Is Daddy going to work or can he play outside with us?  Can we play with water outside?  If we get sweaty outside, can we have a Popsicle?

This happens almost every day and our responses are almost always the same…

We are not playing outside yet because we have some things that we must take care of inside first.  We need to do some reading practice and some math practice.  We need to take care of the baby.  We need to clean some things up. 

This is our routine.  Each day our kids must devote time to accomplish some things inside before they are able to go outside and play.  I thought that this picture of our kids’ daily routine illustrates a concept about our lives that is crucial.  We have a tendency of continually wanting to address outside behaviors in our lives instead of doing the harder work, looking inside our hearts first, seeing where we need work and then making changes.  When we work on outside change in our lives, it can be fulfilling for a moment, but it will never last.  Real change happens in our lives from the inside out.

According to the Bible, human beings are made up of two parts.  Our outer part is our physical body, and our inner part is the spiritual part of us that the Bible refers to as the “heart”.  Paul David Tripp, in his book Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands, explains this inner and spiritual reality of our make up in this way… “The heart is the “real” you.  It is the essential core of who you are.”  Scripture backs this up.  Take Luke 6:45 as an example… “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”

Whatever is going on inside will eventually come out.  The more we invest in heart change on the inside, the more we will experience lasting change and fulfillment on the outside.  So how do we do this?  How do we focus on the inside and not the outside?  Here are five tips to get you started…

Tip #1 – Pursue the Heart Changer

In Ezekiel 36:26, God showed the prophet Ezekiel what He was going to do through the ministry of Jesus.  He explained… “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.  And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”  At the point of salvation, we are given new hearts and God’s Holy Spirit comes and lives in us.  This is an amazing truth.  God is in the business of changing hearts.  It only makes sense that we would pursue Him through His Word, prayer and fasting and allow Him to shape and form our hearts.

Tip #2 – Persist in Relationships

In Proverbs 27:17 we see the truth that “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.”  God changes and strengthens our hearts and our inner beings through relationships.  We exist in a culture that is very consumed by and distracted with “self”, so it is necessary for us to persist to have relationships where sharpening is happening.

Tip #3 – Check Your Intentions

When you make any change to your behavior or routine, are you ever asking the question… why am I choosing to do this?  If not, you need to start asking the question.  You may be making changes in search of peace, meaning or to please others.  Ultimately, everything you do and change about your life needs to flow from the heart of God.  Start asking the question… is what I am about to do for God’s glory?

Tip #4 – Start Small with Changes

If you start investing on the inside and changes start happening on the outside, make sure that you start small.  Did you know that 92% of New Year’s Resolutions fail?  The reason is that so many of us want big changes that happens immediately that are not tied to the heart.  Be wise.  Start small.  Success with small changes is far better than failure with big changes.

Tip #5 – Welcome Trials

Simple question… do you want to be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing?  Well, the Bible gives us the answer to how this happens.  James 1:2-4 says, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”  So, when trials come, don’t complain and don’t run, but see them as gifts and opportunities for God to change you from the inside out.

Noah

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