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         But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (I Samuel 16:7) 

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. (Matthew 23:27)

 

          Every so often, a meme shows up that says that it doesn’t matter what you believe. All that matters is what you do – specifically that it doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you’re “nice” or “kind.” Today’s passages provide two instances in which appearance or even behaviors make one look good, but inside? Not so much. It’s not that David’s older brother was necessarily a monster, and it’s likely that there were a lot of teachers of the law and Pharisees who seemed like fine, upstanding folks.

          The problem is that the separation of the inside and the outside – the heart or mind and the body, the thoughts and behaviors is that it separates the inside and the outside and then generally separates one or the other from God. If the only thing that matters is behavior, then you can hate a person – imagine yourself driving a knife deep into their bowels over and over…and over, and it doesn’t matter because you smile and say, “Hi! How are you?” Or, you can actually drive a knife deep into their bowels… and claim that you didn’t do it, your body did. The body is evil, but the mind and soul are disconnected and untainted by it. This is the _____ “with the heart of gold” idea.

          This is not what Jesus teaches. He tells us that our insides and outsides are all part of us. We don’t get to discard one and let it do whatever it wants. And what Dallas Willard points out is that our insides and outsides don’t tend to work together well. This is where we need work.

          But one of the things I’m finding is that launching major campaigns isn’t helpful in the long run. We get all motivated and do something – like lose weight – and we are proud of ourselves, but it doesn’t last because we move on to work on something else. Sometimes, we even perceive the part as a separate thing. I’m going to work to get my body “in line with” Scripture, but the rest of us languishes. We must discuss them as separate things to understand them, but what if it’s more about learning to defeat temptation when it comes – no matter what form it takes? What if it’s about dealing with thoughts, feelings, or whatever as one experiences them rather than not dealing with them because they aren’t part of the program right now?

          This may not be the answer, but it’s something to consider.

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