Department of the Interior

In 1849 Congress set up the Department of the Interior to care for the great natural resources inside our vast country.  Water and minerals, national parks, energy and conservation...the responsibilities of this office were as vast as the land itself.  When the office was established, much of the interior of our country was still unexplored, but the value of its natural resources was recognized as a great hope for our country's future.  We also have a personal Department of the Interior.  We have vast and vital supernatural resources that need care and development within our person.   The writer of Hebrews explains that a big difference from the Old Covenant, with its system of sacrifice and ceremonial laws, was the personal and direct relationship that God wanted to establish with people:

Hebrews 8:10 

But this is the new covenant I will make
    with the people of Israel on that day, says the Lord:
I will put my laws in their minds,
    and I will write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
    and they will be my people.

God wanted to have a personal and close relationship with people.  He wanted to meet and move with them on the "Interior" of their lives.  This one phrase seems to capture much of what God has in mind from chapter 10: 22 let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him.  In the invisible interior place of our mind and heart it is possible to actually go into God's presence now, just as will eventually go to be with Him in a permanent, direct, eternal way.  Having come to trust in Jesus by that invisible work of faith, we now continue to explore, trust and grow our interior domain...also through faith.  The great thing about our "interior" is that because it is not a physical, tangible kind of place it cannot be destroyed.  Our interior has been brought to life here and now and can be developed and appropriately mined and tended, something like our country's natural resources.  But the object of our great interior is The Lord.  Hebrews will give us many examples in chapter 11 of people who took the management of their interior lives very seriously!

peace,

Rob Smith