inside or outside?

Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. 

Psalm 51:6

God wants to remake me on the inside. Of course every other opinion among people seems to focus on the outside. We live in a youth and beauty obsessed culture. Billions of dollars and entire industries are devoted to the outer person. Fitness, cosmetics, fashion, even a substantial part of medicine are all fixated with keeping us all looking and feeling and acting as if everyone must have the goal of perpetually reliving their late 20's. It is really quite crazy and perverse.

The outer person wasts away. We age, sicken, weaken, and all of us will one day die. So investment merely in the outer person will be a loss every time. That is why it is wise to put our real energies where God is most concerned. He delights in truth, wisdom, and righteousness guiding our hearts. He wants to make us new creatures in the inner man. He wants us to be the people that He changes noticeably on the inside.

When David wrote the fifty-first psalm he was at a point of desperate need to change. He was repenting of some major sins: lying, adultery, murder, and government conspiracy - just to name a few. And in that confession comes this realization that God wanted him changed on the inside. He knew that in God's forgiveness the change could be real. David would discipline himself to delight in truth and learn God's wisdom. And then even the ugliest of sins that God would remove and forgive could be replaced with God's better truth. Then he would be restored to true worth and fellowship again. And in that wisdom real change would renew him.

God wants me changing on the inside. He wants me to confess and forsake sin. He wants His word and His Spirit to develop the beautiful character of Christ within me. And that is where my thoughts and efforts must first start.