Does God care what we do?

(Image courtesy of https://victorypath.wordpress.com.)

I sometimes wonder if God really cares what profession I work in or in what geographical position I live.  I think there is a better question to ask, though.

Humans are physical beings and are usually mastered by our five senses.
A.W. Tozer says this about our human condition:

The world of sense intrudes upon our attention day and night for the whole of our lifetime.  It is clamorous, insistent, and self-demonstrating.  It does not appeal to our faith; it is here, assaulting our five senses, demanding to be accepted as real and final.  But so sin has so clouded the lenses of our hearts that we cannot see that other reality, the City of God, shining around us.  The world of sense triumphs.  The visible becomes the enemy of the invisible, the temporal, of the eternal.  That is the curse inherited by every member of Adam's tragic race.

Because we are bombarded by our physical senses, humans tend to focus on the things we see, hear, taste, touch, and smell.  Therefore, we tend to focus on our jobs or our house or our location on the earth instead of the invisible, usually intangible things of God.

But I believe God cares more about who we are on the inside, for out of the stuff on the inside comes what is seen on the outside.

Yesterday I prayed these words to God during a time with Him:

Lord, please give me wisdom to discern what things in this life can be discarded and what things can be kept. I want to live a full life of truth and simplicity. God, please be evident in every part of me. Your Word is true and right and good. You care about who I am, not so much what I do, for what I do comes straight out of who I am.

Immediately after I finished praying, Mark 7:14-16 came to my mind.  The passage tells of a time when Jesus said that it is not what comes into a man that makes him unclean, but what comes out of him.  "[T]he things that come out of a person are what defiles him" (Mark 7:15).

Jesus is specifically talking about certain foods that were considered unclean for the Jews to eat according to the Mosaic Law (from today's Old Testament).  Jesus made it clear that it is not breaking the law outwardly that makes people unclean, but it is what comes out of people's hearts that makes them unclean.  God cares so much more about our integrity than our outward appearances.  For out of the good stored up in him, a man will do good, and out of the evil stored up, a man will do evil.

Take care, then, to study the Word of God, to meditate on it day and night, to repent of sin and deal with it thoroughly, and to surrender to God daily.  Out of these spiritual disciplines will flow a well-spring of life from the Holy Spirit that will impact not only our internal attitudes, but will in-turn cause us to live right on the outside as well.

Brothers and sisters, devote more of yourself to Jesus.  He doesn't want two hours on Sunday and one on Wednesday.  He wants it all.  He deserves it all.  Give Him your all.


"Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart" (I Samuel 16:7).