MAY 9, 2025 ~ FROM A PASTOR'S HEART

MAY 9 DEVOTIONAL BIBLE READING: GALATIANS 5:16-26

The thought that people can be changed from the outside-in is erroneous. The only way people are changed is from the inside-out. When a person comes to Christ they are made a new creation in Him. He touches the inner person and changes them. He takes a spiritually dead person and gives them life. So many approach Christianity as an exercise in behavioral modification, believing if we can just get people to act right, they will be right with God. If we humans could change our behavior to always do what is right, there would be no need for Jesus, no need for the Holy Spirit, no need for His Resurrection power to work in us. Our primary problem is not our behavior; our behavior manifests our primary problem...SIN! Sin is what is wrong in our hearts, our souls and our spirits. Sin has separated us from God. It has made us dead to God, without any hope of life from us.

Because we were dead in our sin, we would not or could not reach out to God. In His love and mercy, He reached out to us. It is God who sent His Son. It is Jesus who came to us. It is the Holy Spirit who calls us to salvation. The Pharisees believed, like many religionists do today, that the outward is the most important. It was more important what you looked like and acted like, than what you really were. Jesus looked past the religious garb and the pious persona and said they were like "whitewashed tombs and cups, clean only on the outside" but on the inside filled with filthy corruption. Biblical Christianity is concerned with the heart, the soul and the spirit, understanding when they are made right by the Lord, righteous actions will always follow. We are called to reach the precious souls of people, not require them to act a certain way.

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