Today I've been reflecting on how difficult it is to bring and keep the inner life of faith together with outer life of faith. By the inner life of faith, I mean prayer and yieldedness to Christ. By outer life of faith, I mean obedience. On the one hand, if the inner life is greater than the outer life, the result is spiritual selfishness and or deadness (i.e., failing to return to God proper praise for His good gifts). For me this means reading, meditating, and musing over the great truths of God's Word and failing to act upon them or resisting the Holy Spirit's use of these truths in me. I guess a failure to allow these truths to produce good fruit simply demonstrates that my "inner life" is simply one of contemplation and not of faith.
On the other hand, if the outer life is greater than the inner life, the result is spiritual hypocrisy and emotionalism. For me this looks like manufacturing responses to corporate worship or private conversations that look like they arise from a vibrant relationship with God but in reality do not.
In the end, there is really only one life of faith. It is not possible to have a truly vibrant inner life (i.e., faith and yieldedness) that fails to produce good fruit in the outer life (i.e., properly motivated obedience). Conversely, it is not possible to have a truly vibrant outer life (i.e., properly motivated obedience) that is sourced in anything other than a heart filled with faith. Genuine faith cannot be divided into inner and outer parts--one being good and the other being bad. True faith issues forth in a singular life; one that is not infatuated with truth for truth's sake (mere contemplation) or distracted by what anyone but God sees (emotionalism and hyposcrisy). Bringing the inner and outer facets of our lives together in sigularity is not something we accomplish with the glue of our wills. Singluarity only happens when we fix our gaze upon the One who has redeemed us, the One to whom we belong, the only One worthy of such a worshipful gaze--Jesus (Heb. 12:1-3). Singularity is a fruit produced by God's Spirit when Christ--not singularity, spiritual vibrancy, or sophistication--becomes our ultimate aim and goal.
Father, grant us vibrant communion with You, through your Son, and by Your Spirit. Let our lives be singular; may we serve You and only You. Help our worship to arise from hearts overjoyed at who You are and whose we are in Christ. May we never manufacture false demonstrations of spirituality, but rather fill us with true hearts of faith that worship and obey in Spirit and in truth.
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