The Layers Around My Heart

I have been reading Psalm 103 a lot lately…and there was a verse that really stuck out to me…

v. 1 Praise the Lord, O my soul, all my inmost being praise his holy name

My inmost being….what does that mean…God doesn’t just want my outmost being to praise his name – he wants my inmost being. The core of who I am.

Psalm 51:6 (NIV) Surely you desire truth in the inner parts, you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.

Again, David writes about the importance of having truth at the core of who your are. We can refer to this core as our heart.

Psalm 139:13 For you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; 
you formed me in my mother's womb. (MSG)

God didn’t start with the outside – he started with the inside!!!

The core of who you are is who God created you to be.

God didn’t create layers around you – he created YOU!!!!

Prov 20:27 The Lamp of the Lord searches the spirit of a man; it searches out his inmost being.

As I read these scriptures it may me think…is there an outward being and in inward being…why would David write about wanting the inmost being, the inmost place to praise God and have wisdom in those areas?

Most of us have probably heard sermons about how God looks on the inside and the world looks at the outside – and that they inside needs to represent what is on the outside. I have loved hearing these messages, and they have challenged me – but the Lord has challenged me lately to look deeper into the truth of my inmost being.

The picture that I have is a bullseye. The core of who we are is at the center and then there are layers around that core.

There are layers to who we are. Layers we have put on us or that others have put on us. I know from my own life there are some changes that I allow the Holy Spirit prompt me to make but then I say this is far enough, this is uncomfortable, this is hard, this isn’t really necessary…( it is not the layers that God wants to get at but he wants to get to the core!!!)

Sometimes we don’t want to admit growth because then we have to admit that something needed to change.

We are good at putting on the great Christian Façade. We say the right things, we pray the right prayers, we give the right answers, we even know when to be partially vulnerable so keep people at bay and have them not close to us.

If we dare to let our guard down – what will people think. If I dare to expose who I really am, the thoughts that I really have, what will others think and what will I think of myself. We suppress what is really going on…and take on a form of Christianity.

We have trained ourselves but not really changed

Judas was a trained follower of Christ but not changed at the core

Martha was a trained follower of Christ but didn’t have the right heart

I can do really good acts, I do them because they are right, because I was taught to do them, but they are not at the core of who I am – because when the rough moments come those “right choices” are not the foundation to stand on.

If we truly would allow God into the core of who we are…our lives would never be the same – it would be a life that was surrender. This surrendering is a journey.

Layers of the bullseye:

Anger, Gossip, Bitterness, Regret, Hurt, Revenge, Fear, Disappointment, Doubt, Pride, Insecurities, Self-centeredness, Disobedience, Envy, Failure, Feeling of Insignificance.

I may let God in to some extent with His truth but I haven’t let His truth transform my inmost being. How do I know? I believe that when we have allowed to come in to my inmost being I will never go back to what had once been. I have allowed myself to be rebirthed, washed by the Holy Spirit.

The heart of this blog is not for us to come up with a bunch of solutions to what you need to do in your life but for you to become aware of your layers:

Until you are aware of what is in between your inmost being and God you can’t allow His truth to come in and heal, comfort, refute the lies, give peace, cover you with His unfailing love.

What hurt that happened in your life when you were a child, a teenager, an adult is still keeping you trapped? You don’t allow God’s truth to come to that part of your heart because you feel safe in the pain, you feel justified in the choices you have made and are making because of that pain, you don’t even realize the impact of that pain because you have buried it so deep.

The Lords wants to deal with these things to the core of who you are – then he wants to cover it with His perfect abounding love.

Psalm 103:8 The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. (NIV)

NLT – unfailing love

MSG – rich in love

CEV – his love never fails

AMP – plenteous in loving kindness

The Lord loves you to much to leave you the way you are. And His love is gentle and compassionate so when we start discovering the junk in our lives he doesn’t throw it in our faces but gentle but firmly helps us deal with it…

God desires truth in the inmost part of your being – only Gods truth can heal, repair, and ultimately and genuinely transform us.

I don’t know about you be I want to be genuinely transformed – because I know that somewhat /fake/ unreal transformation – doesn’t work, it doesn’t stick and it definitely does not withstand storms in my life.

Psalm 51:6 (MSG)

What you are after is truth from the inside out. Enter me then, conceive a new, true life!

Let's be on this journey together to discover what is at the core of our hearts.