Maxwell: I'm working now on a lesson that's been working on me for the last three months. It's still evolving, so it's not great; but it's where I am. In fact, this Sunday at Christ Fellowship, I'm going to do a teaching on it, kind of the first time.
One of the things that's changed is that I'm willing to teach now out of what I'm learning even though I don't think I've got all the answers yet. I'm willing to let people enjoy that process and journey.
It's on the subject of inside-out living. The thesis is that if I'm bigger on the inside than I am on the outside, that speaks of my spirit—that Caleb spirit, I suppose. If I'm better on the inside than I am on the outside, that's character. In time, I'll become bigger and better on the outside. It's really going to be a message of "Don't worry about the outside as much; worry about the inside, because that's where God looks."
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God looks at the heart of man, and I'm using Job as my example. He was an honest man inside and out. When Satan came to God and challenged Him on Job's life, what I love is what God says: "Have you considered My friend Job?" I would love for God to have that kind of confidence in me. You know, "Have you considered My friend John?"
Here's the whole crux of this lesson: Satan believed Job was bigger on the outside than he was on the inside. He was the most influential man in the East; Satan said, "If I can get a hold of his outside, it'll change his inside."
God said, "No, he's bigger on the inside than he is on the outside. You can mess with his outside, but it won't change his inside." I just think there's a whole bunch of stuff there, and I'm developing what I think are the stages we go through to become an inside-out Christian, to be an inside-out leader, an inside-out person.
I think stage one is the "Help me" stage. That's where we all start a relationship with God. We're messed up and need God to forgive us of sin, so we start there. There other three stages—I move around on the sequence of them…One is the "Search me" stage, such as when the psalmist says, "Search my heart," which to me is the stage that makes the change because that's where we give up control of our lives. When we give up control, then we can go to the "Make me" stage and someday to the "Use me" stage. I'm still working on it because I think the later the "Search me" stage comes, the more difficult our spiritual battles are and the more we work on the outside instead of the inside.
I don't think we really work on the inside until we get to the search issue and basically say, "God, come on in. You come in and show me where I am and what's wrong; then begin to change my life." That's probably more of a message than you wanted to hear, but that's kind of where I am.
John Maxwell's latest book, Everyone Communicates, Few Connect: What Most Effective People Do Differently is now available from Thomas Nelson.
