AUDIT

Every year our church undergoes a vigorous, penetrating internal audit to make sure we have financial and organizational integrity. If we find something awry, we know we can't move forward until that thing is examined and fixed.

Jesus continually reinforced the idea of individuals conducting personal internal audits. For example, in Matthew 23 He accuses the scribes and Pharisees of meticulously cleaning the outside of the cup while leaving the inside full of extortions and lies. He called them white-washed structures housing rotting corpses.

He tells His listeners to conduct internal audits when He says, 'When you bring your gift to the altar, if you have anything against your brother, go make peace with him first, and then bring your gift to God.' In other words, you can't impress God with beautifully wrapped presents when your heart is full of resentment.

The Day of Atonement involved an unblemished goat. The priest would lay his hands on it, not to bless it, but to transfer by proxy all the community's unknown sin. Then they would allow the goat to escape into the wilderness, presumably to be eventually seized by some further-up-the-food-chain predator, and everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief as the animal carried away their sins. Attractive as this approach may have seemed, it did not do the job.

Each of us is held accountable for his/her own thoughts and actions and Jesus was adamant that we do ongoing internal audits.

One of the reasons the Freedom Seeker ministry (see yesterday's blog) is so effective in helping people overcome addictive behaviors is that one of the steps demands that people conduct a rigorous and honest inventory of how they might have harmed others in the past, and however possible, to make amends. The originator of that approach must have known that in order to calm the outward storm of life, the person must look within.

I fully believe that 80% (OK - 75%) of our problems are due to internal, unidentified and unacknowledged sin. Until we get aligned with God, we cannot move forward with Him or with the community of faith in good health.

I wonder what it would look like if each of us conducted regular internal audits. Surely, if we did, more of the peace and prosperity and joy and success we ache for would be found.

And be blessed.