Reflecting on Rob’s sermon, I realised that in our lives there are often two sides to the coin– an inner and an outer life. If we are spiritual in our inner lives but aren’t able to relate this to the community around us, how will people see Christ in us? Let us look at Jesus. His outer life truly reflected his inner life. People saw his love, sincerity, compassion, healing and forgiveness. While it is good to have prayer, Scripture reading, worship and fasting, if we don’t apply this externally then we will struggle in our walk with God.
How can we relate our Christian faith to our family, friends and the community around us? More often than not, it is our attitude on doing the small and mundane things in life that matter. People will see more of Christ in us if we act and respond with love, and if we are being honest and real in our lives.
More pertinently, we are called to live and keep in step with the Spirit.
In Galatians 5:22, Paul explained that the fruit of Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
If our inner and outer lives are no longer distinguishable, then we are ready to respond to both our church family and in the marketplace. The key to this is to merge our spirituality and physicality into a single entity. We need to demonstrate Christ-like values with the community around us whilst consistently depending on God to guide us via prayer and Scripture.
This was the first in a new series about our Inner and Outer Life. You can find the message as well as the worship at the BCEC Sermon Page or listen to last week’s sermon directly – Inner Life : Developing Spiritual Disciplines.