There are people that look great on the outside and even religious, but they have problems on the inside. It could be true of a marriage, a church, an organization, a leader, or maybe even you.

The Word of God in Matthew 23:25 says, "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness."

This is a world where image and appearance are everything. We work on our fitness, our hair, and our wardrobe, making good comments, making good impressions, looking like we have it all together, but there might be another you.

When you're alone and when you're thinking honestly, you can feel that emptiness and hollowness inside. You can't explain it or deny it. Beneath the image you know the darkness and the sin. You know the struggle. Like one young woman said, "There's a darkness inside me that scares me." Mickey Mantle said not long before his death, "I filled my emptiness with alcohol."

Jesus said in John 8:12, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness." Jesus wants to be invited into that inner darkness and emptiness so He can fill it. He said later in Matthew 23, "How often I had longed to gather your children together, but you were not willing."

Jesus has been knocking on the door of your life. It's time to give the emptiness and the darkness to the One who knows all about you. He sees past the image and can forgive that sin. He can clean that darkness and make you free from it.

Let it bring you not to depression, but to the cross of Jesus where he died knowing the sin inside of you and wanting to set you free. Jesus builds people from the inside out. Open the door of your heart and let Jesus in. He will make you strong inside and you can finally have that hollow spot in your heart filled.