Outward

We live in an "inward" world. The "important" part starts with "me" and works outward from there. Generally, the farther out it gets, the less important it is. It's normal. It's what we do. It's exactly the opposite of God's design.

God's demand is that we begin with Him. That's more difficult than we originally imagine. He is not holy. He is not holier. He is holiest. He is the ultimate holy. He is "holy, holy, holy" (Isa 6:3; Rev 4:8). The concept is that repeating it emphasizes it and the concept of "holy" is "apart, separate, other." So we have this "separate" emphasized to the ultimate. That's as far out as it gets. And God says, "Start there." "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" (Matt 22:37). Start there. Then, "Love your neighbor as yourself." Go there next.

Lest you think I'm overstating it, Paul writes this: "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others" (Php 2:3-4). "Count others more significant than yourselves." That's quite a task. That's what we're supposed to do. No ... more carefully, that's what we're designed to do. "Love God, love others, I'm #3."

I think the notion of "outward" rather than "inward" is actually jolting to most humans. I suspect this malfunction is at the core of our sin nature. In Romans we find that a critical component of our sin problem is that we "exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things." We substituted us and the rest of creation for the Creator. What would it look like if we actually started with God first and others second? I try to imagine a world predicated on that "outward" perspective and I find it almost impenetrable, but quite pleasant. Certainly revolutionary from our world's current point of view.