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INWARD: The Inside Look

Excerpt from BOOK: Inside Out by Larry Crabb

Bible Verse Collection: The Inside Look/The Inward Journey (Quizlet)

Deep Longings & Wrong Strategies • The Seven Longings of The Human Heart • It's OK to Desire; It's OK to Hurt • Counterfeit Affections • The Blame Game • The Sin of Self-Protection • Demandingness • The Ten Reasons We Don't Let Go • Emotionally Un-Healthy Spirituality • Practices for Self Reflection and Self-Examination of Our Interior Life • The Four Building Blocks Of Healthy Soil • 19 Relational Skills We So Desperately Need • Formulating An Apology • Escaping Enemy Mode • From Fruit to Root • Mature Love • Affection-Based Obedience • Layers That Can Surround And Obscure Our Weakness • The Pain Processing Pathway • Helping Others Take An Inside Look

An inside look must anticipate uncovering deep, unsatisfied longings that bear testimony to our dignity, as well as foolish and ineffective strategies for keeping ourselves out of pain that reflect our depravity. Each of us is a glorious ruin. And the further we look into our heart, the more clearly we can see the wonder of the ability to enjoy relationship alongside the tragedy of our determination to arrange for own protection from hurt...

Developing maturity requires an inside look...We need to honestly look deep inside and deal with the real flaws in our makeup...

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds." - Jeremiah 17:9-10 ESV

No amount of looking inside will yield perfect certainty about what to do. But with some understanding of what is going on within us will often help us see what changes must occur on the inside before effective external change can be expected...

This inside look will reveal two realities: 1) We have deep longings & we pursue wrong strategies to satisfy those longings, apart from God.

The Purpose Of An Inside Look

1. Reveals my True Lack of Dependence on God (Exposes My Need to Deeply Trust)

To help me to face my [lack of true] dependency on God in a manner that requires me to grapple with what it means to deeply trust.

2. Exposes My Own Tendency Towards Self-Management, In Rejection of God’s Leadership

[To] expose my determination to, in all its subtle ugliness, to manage my own life. Such exposure pushes me toward deeper repentance and more thorough obedience.

3. Reveals What Needs to Change on the Inside

No amount of looking inside will yield perfect certainty about what to do. But some understanding of what is going on within us will often help us see what changes must occur on the inside before effective change can be expected.

4. Has the Potential to Lead to Real Change, Which Leads to Real Spiritual Maturity

To enact “real change” that produces spiritual maturity—the rare type of [mature] character that makes it possible to genuinely love... An awareness of our thirst is the beginning of a closer walk with God...and is the unavoidable first step towards real change.

5. Embraces Mature Love In All Of Life As The Most Excellent Way

[To mature in such a way that we can] draw others to Jesus Christ through the depth of our love.

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