Enjoy Life, Enjoy God

INSIDE OUT

March 23, 2010

Ever put on a shirt the wrong way? You know, inside out? The seams, the labels, the buttons--the inside is on the outside, and the outside in inside.

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What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill.
--James 4:1,2 TNIV
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James' Letter is but a constant toe-stomping tome of relevance. He's always meddling with what's really going on in our lives. Squabbling, quarrels, James sees as what's going on INSIDE us bubbling up to the surface, to the OUTSIDE. In other words, the battles we witness on the outside are little more than the overflow of the turmoil within us. That results in fights, quarrelling, conflict.

James constantly points us back to the only true and worthwhile center, and the only one who can put the INSIDE right, so the OUTSIDE may finally start shaping up: Jesus Christ.. The outside, says James, starts shaping up when we start dealing with the INSIDE.
Joyfully,

Dale Patterson