Full Bloom

This chapter deals with the Kingdom Heart. It deals with the importance of the inside as opposed to the outside. Yesterday we talked about the foolhardy approach most people use in attempting to do good without actually trying to be good. I would say a good many of us fall into this category. At the same time, we know that simply wanting to do good is not enough. Eventually people will want to see good in our lives or they will question where the life-changing power of God is to be found.

The question is, How can one keep the law? Jesus knew the answer, and that is why he told those who wanted to know how to work the works of God to put their confidence in the one God had sent. (John 6:29) 

Is it starting to make sense? In order to keep the law, we have to start with Jesus. We cannot do it on our own. We need him. 

He knew that we cannot keep the law by trying to keep the law. One must aim to become the kind of person from whom the deeds of the law naturally flow. The apple tree naturally and easily produces apples because of its inner nature.

Jesus has the astounding effect of changing the inner nature of the people he has contact with. The people remain the same, but their insides are refreshed and renewed, thus causing their outsides to eventually produce new works as well. They remain who they were, but now their lives are working toward good. 

This is the most crucial thing to remember if we would understand Jesus' picture of the kingdom heart given in the Sermon on the Mount.  


First, our aims must be to become the kind of people from whom good naturally flows. We must not seek to do good for the sake of looking good or seeming good (as I have so often been guilty of in the past). No, we must desire to want the good to be the outcomes in our lives. We must push past our natural, selfish, greedy, adulterous, lustful, raging, angry, contemptuous, judgmental selves and replace such feelings with God's agape love.

Sound easy? It's impossible. That is to say, it is impossible without the aid of the very one God decided to send to us. Jesus enables us to change the inside. He enables us to be good, holy, and perfect.

But only if we allow him to.

In the words of C.S. Lewis, "He can never ravish; he can only woo." Christ will not force himself into our lives in order to change them. Not unless we ask him to. Not unless we seek after him. Not unless we choose to desire to be good. Only then will he enable us to be that which we desire, and again, only if we ask.

Actions do not emerge from nothing. They faithfully reveal what is in the heart. It is the inner soul that we must aim to transform, and then behavior will naturally and easily follow.

This is the amazing message of Jesus' Gospel. He comes to bring us life, eternal life, life to the full, and he does so by changing the very nature we rely on that clings to the lifeless existence we currently inhabit.

Our roots our dead, and we need to be replanted. Our motherboard is fried, and it needs to be replaced. Our insides are all messed up, and we need a surgeon. Jesus is that farmer, surgeon, and repairman to our spiritual lives. Always, it comes from the inside. Always, it requires a change of heart, a conscience and willful decision on our part in order to effect the change we seek to effect.

This change of heart is termed in the Greek Dikaiosune (prounced dik-ah-yos-oo'-nay), and it shall be the focus of our discussion tomorrow. Until then, dear readers...