A Beautiful Home Or Is It?

On the corner of a made up street in a made up town was a beautiful home. The owner was always meticulous making sure the bushes were cut, the gardens had the most beautiful fragrant flowers. The paint on the house was in perfect order, the windows well kept. The lawn is always cut to the perfect length and there are no clippings left anywhere. The house looked like those that you see in a magazine, it was incredible how beautiful it looked. It seemed the owner took great pride in how beautiful it was and made sure that the people that looked at the house would say it was beautiful. He was so concerned with it, it took up most of his free time, he was lost in the concern of what people thought of him, by how his house looked.

However one day a neighbor boy was selling candy. He went door to door ringing the door bells. He got to the mans home, the boy saw the beauty of the outside and careful reached for the doorbell. It rang, he stood there and waited for the door to open. He thought with such beauty on the outside, it must be spotless on the inside. He waited another moment the anticipation was building to see what the house looked like on the inside. He heard a lock turn and the man opened the door. The boy said "hello sir, I am selling candy bars for my school. Would you like to buy one?" The man looked down at the boy and said "Yes, but I must go get money." The boy had the opportunity to see inside.

The first thing he noticed was a terrible smell coming from inside and then he saw the stacks of newspaper cluttering every inch of the hallway, there was but a path to get through. He also noticed the walls were cracked and chipping, their were water stains on the walls. and just garbage piled all over. He couldn't believe the state of the home from the outside to the inside. After the man paid for the candy bar, he closed the door.

The boy walked away pondering about how many other homes were like that. They are well maintained on the outside, but inside they were in ruins.

We are much like that house, we can be well maintained on the outside, we look like we have it all together, we look the part, we act it, but on the inside we are a mess. We worry about what others think of us more than what God thinks of us. God sees the heart, He knows what we are thinking and He knows that the outside is just a facade. We are in fact living a lie, we are not only lying to ourselves and others, we are trying to lie to God. But we are not hiding from God, we need to be more worried about what God thinks of our lives, then what others think of it. Is it time we start working on the heart issues? What does your heart care about more God or others?