“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside
they are full of robbery and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish so that the outside of it may become clean also. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.
Even so you too outwardly appear righteous to men but inwardly
you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
Matthew 23:25-28
[emphasis mine]
Today we shall recognize that life is in two parts. That which is on the inside of you are really you and that which is on the outside may be pretended. This truth is in keeping with the Lord who says that: 1Sam 16:7 But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart. It shall be my purpose over the month of September to magnify the possibilities if not the reality of that which is on the inside. Through Jeremiah the prophet the Lord says Jer. 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
The ‘heart’ is a representation of that which is on the inside which works its way to the outside and if it is good and clean then that which it produces will be good and clean. Since it, being unchanged and unregenerate, is ‘deceitful above all things and desperately wicked’ it is understandable that the life product it produces will bear a similarity to it. Because you are taking the time to follow these ‘daily devotionals’, it is likely that you have received a ‘new heart’ according to the teachings of the Bible which states the following: Eze36:26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
Come back tomorrow and I shall take us further into the examination of the heart both new and old and how the outside can and should match up to the inside qualities and characteristics of the new, changed and regenerate heart.