Most of our approaches to life and religion involve externals: rituals, rewards, requirements, other “r” words I’m sure. We think if we get these things right then all will be fixed.
If your husband only understands what it means to leave his towel on the bathroom floor, he’ll change.
If your teenager is told what laziness will lead to in his life, he will get to work.
If you made a little more money, then your wife would finally be happy with you.
Take politics for instance, both sides of the aisle are convinced that the main solution to all our problems is some kind of political victory. The right kind of political victory. But both ignore a fundamental problem, a fly in the ointment: the human heart.
Israel had all the externals you would need to love God, trust him, worship him, and flourish in his creation. And yet they utterly and devastatingly failed at this.
Why?
Because just like in human relationships, real change, real love, cannot be forced from the outside but must come from within, it must spring up spontaneously and supernaturally in our hearts…in other words, if God is going to have a people who love him, serve him, please him, worship him, then he’s going to need Someone on the inside to do the job.
