It's the inside that counts...

There is nothing quite like sitting on your bed, cappuchino in one hand, rusk in the other hand and an open Bible on your lap.... reading Matthew 5. I don't know if anyone can read Matthew 5 and not be convicted. Each passage I read seemed to be telling me the same thing, in different ways... it is not what you do on the outside that counts the most, it is the what is going on inside you that counts the most.

I've been brought up in a suburb, where most people are pretty decent and lead decent moral lives (for the most part that we know of). It is therefore not incredibly difficult to lead a fairly decent moral life, as that is what I'm brought up with. However, God can see straight into my heart, and he knows what I think about the people I meet, the taxi drivers I encounter, the impatience I experience, the anger I feel... inside me is a big black vast cavern of sin that people only see glimpses of every once in a while.

The only way this can change is through God. I cannot change me in my own strength. I need God's light shining inside me and then then this will also shine out of me. Unless I spend time with God and draw closer to him nothing is going to change for the better.

I was convicted as I sat on my bed about the "forsaking of meeting with other Christians" that often happens due to my fast pace of work life. It is hard to see how the work pace will change, I have my plans, but they don't seem very good, even to me!!

I look around me at work, at the people the same level or higher than me in management, they are either unmarried or are single with kids or divorced. There are extremely few of them that are happily married with kids. So basically, in my current line of work, it would appear that people genuinely don't have a whole lot of time for anything other than work, so in order for me to meet with other Christians and guard my marriage, something has to be different for me. Maybe just having these priorities and striving to achieve them, with God's help, will be sufficient - maybe at some point something more drastic will have to happen.

This is all in God's hands. He has led me thus far, he has led me to my current work, I am where He wants me to be currently. In this I must just rest for the moment - and plan to go to the new Bible Study Group that we are joining on Wednesday.