I have begun to be a contributor on a collaborative blog www.insideoutpeople.com seeking to encourage conversation and life change in being authentic followers of Christ who are making a difference in their immediate community and the global community. I want to encourage you to go there and check out what the other contributors have to say, it is challenging on all levels.
We were asked to each give a perspective on what it means to be an inside out person. I want to share my posts here as well as encourage you to go there to read others.
“Full of It”
What are you filled with? What am I filled with?
At first that seems like a difficult or weird question to answer. But if I ask someone else to describe you or me, they are probably going to use some words that begin or end in “full”! And honestly on different days I might be described in different words…one day I may be described as “joyful” but another, “spiteful”, or “full of love”, or “playful”, or acting in “hurtful” ways, etc.
We describe each other like this because we see the things coming out of a person as what describes the stuff that is on the INSIDE. What’s on the inside COMES OUT, one way or another. We can pretend for awhile (and we all have done it), but the stuff in there will spill out. So what’s in there??
“…Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.” -Colossians 1.27b-29
So the biggest concerns for me are…
first, is Christ in me and is he my hope?
second, is HIS energy working powerfully within me?
and third, HOW am I working and struggling with his energy spilling out of me to others?
If Christ is in me people should be able to call me “Christful”. Certainly it is less complex to say that someone is “joyful” rather than “Christful”. But the more you and I get to know the Christ of the story (the living Christ understood through the Scriptures), the more we become like his character, his thoughts, his heart, his everything! Are people seeing you and I spilling over with Jesus and describing us as full of Him? Are we living out the life of Jesus in other lives, with those who are hurting and those who are rejoicing?
This describes the basis for my understanding of being an Inside Out Person and describes my mission, my purpose, and my cause for my life and all the relationships in my life. I need others in my life to challenge me and encourage me to be living this way! So join us as we go through the ups and the downs of seeking to be Full of it!
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