CHANGING FROM INSIDE-OUT

Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me – Psalm 51:10

“Renewing your mind involves changes in your conscious thinking. But even more important in the renewal process are the changes that take place in the spirit of your mind.

Important changes in your life are manifestations of the inward changes you have made. So we need to focus on the inward things. People are so often concerned with the changing outward things that all their time is spent dealing with them, and they never get to the true root of change. Consequently, in spite of all the time they spend trying to change, very few things ever really change.

…Our minds are the controlling mechanisms of our lives – computers that store information and control the way things happen. Your mind control decisions and choices. In your family, business, finances, health and all you do, your mind is the controlling mechanism. So, to the degree that your mind is renewed is the degree of change and a renewed life that you will experience.

If you continue to focus on the outward things, you will miss the changes that are possible. The aches, sniffles and fever that go with a cold, for example, aren’t the cold, but they are the symptoms of it. They aren’t the problem but manifestations of the problem. And dealing with the symptoms of a cold does not cure you of the same cold.

In the same way, most of us only deal with life’s symptoms. We focus on outward things and look at circumstances. Because we spend our time focused on the symptoms, we don’t get to the root cause of the problem.