It is the time of year that many of us begin looking around our house and deciding that it is time to spruce the place up. Walmart has moved their cleaning items to the front of the store to entice us to begin that process. We open up the windows, deep clean the carpets, scrub the floors and walls and add some color to our environment. Today I want you to begin thinking about spring cleaning your other house also.
2 Kings 20:1 says,”set your house in order, for you shall die and not live” These words were spoken to Hezekiah on what was to be his deathbed. However, he turned to God and prayed, he had a spiritual spring cleaning of sorts, and God heard him and not only healed him but granted him 15 more years of life. Now, I am not saying that spiritual spring cleaning will add any years to your life, but I will say that just as spring cleaning your house makes it a more pleasant place to live and be, spring cleaning your spiritual house will make you a more pleasant place for the Spirit to dwell.
During the winter months our homes become “stale” with recycled air circulating, Extra dirt gets brought into the house that may not be cleaned out as efficiently due to shorter daylight hours or cold weather or business. Our spiritual house is the same way. We go through periods in our life we were are just recirculating what we know and not inviting anything new in. We allow extra dirt to creep into our lives gradually, but it builds up. The world outside dirties up our windows and every so often it needs cleaned off/out. Today I invite you to begin spring cleaning your spiritual house.
To do this, we need to take a look at ourselves and evaluate what needs cleaned first. Continuing with the spring cleaning analogy, we usually start with the things that are dirtiest or those that are most obvious first. Seriously, do you clean under your fridge before while the counters are covered with dishes? It is the same with our spiritual spring cleaning. Take a moment and think about the one thing in your life that you feel should be your biggest priority to straighten up right now. Here are a few areas you may want to examine:
· Your heart – we can’t clean ourselves up without God. Psalm 51:10 tells us that God creates a clean heart and renews a right spirit within us.
· Your mouth – this is more than just bad language, as we have talked before it includes how we talk about others(negative talk, pessimistic thoughts, complaining, gossip etc) Phillippians 2:14 tells us to do EVERYTHING without complaining or arguing while Luke 6:45 tells us that what we speak is the overflow of our heart. If our heart is a reflection of our relationship with God, what are our words showing the world about that relationship?
Once we have discovered what needs cleaned, we need to gather our tools. When cleaning your home you don’t grab a straw broom to clean the bathtub. We also need to be sure we are using the right tool for this job. There are tons of books out there about how to get closer to God, how to have the life every Christian wants, how to be a godly woman. I don’t know about you but I am a gadget girl. I like trying new things that are supposed to make cleaning quicker and easier. I would LOVE to have one of those Roomba things that clean the carpet for you. Sometimes we look for the easy way to clean our spiritual souls too. I am a reader, so I turn to books a lot in an attempt to find the path to “better”. A title like How to have a new Kid by Friday appeal to that part of me that wants to fix it quick and with little effort. Reality is though that sometimes our quick fixes are based on a firm foundation of truth, and sometimes they are not. When cleaning our spiritual house, we need to be sure that the tool we are using is really going to work rather than waste time and effort trying everything else first. This tool is the Bible. Need to know how to remove a stain on your heart? The Bible holds the answer whether that stain is unforgiveness, idolatry, idleness, pride or any other stain. Before you start cleaning take some time to research what the Bible has to say about what you are wanting to clean up. Write it down and keep it with you so that when you are having a particularly rough time removing the stain you can turn to your tool for help. Hebrews 4:12 tells us that the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword. It is probably the ONLY THING that can remove the stain.
So we know what we are cleaning and how to clean it, now we need to declutter. I am a pack rat, both in this world and spiritually. Given the option I would surround myself with TONS of seemingly meaningless stuff because of the meaning I tend to place on something. I saved baby teeth (finally threw those out about 2 years ago), the dried up umbilical stump is taped in one of my kids baby books, and anything that could be recycled into a crafty project gets saved too. I am recovering from this need to save for one reason and one reason only. The clutter it creates makes life more difficult. It is hard to feel at peace in a home of barely controlled chaos. When every flat surface in your house is cluttered to the point you can’t even put a glass on your side table then I began to feel cluttered and out of control and overwhelmed. Our spiritual life is the same. Are you hanging on to something? Anger, unforgiveness, the thought that it was better before? In my spiritual life I collected the negative thoughts that others voiced about me and clung to them believing they were part of who I am. No one would love me because I was fat, I wasn’t good enough at _________, I didn’t deserve what my parents gave me, if my mother had been smart she would have left me with my father when they divorced because I was ruining her life. And so much more. We all have those voices from our past that cause us to doubt that God loves us, really loves us. Toss out the clutter. You don’t need it, it doesn’t define you, and it doesn’t matter anymore. Hebrews 12:1 tells us to strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that hinders our progress. Ephesians 4:31 tells us to get rid of bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Romans 12:2 tells us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds and Philippians 4:8 tells us to focus on things that are just, pure, lovely, of good report, of virtue and praise.
Next comes the hard part, for me at least. I am a procrastinator at heart. The problem with that is that I don’t function well under pressure so when I wait until the last minute to do something, things tend to fall apart around me. If I put off spring cleaning the next thing you know I get a phone call telling me I am going to be having unexpected company and I begin rushing around like a mad woman trying to get it all done and I inevitably end up overlooking something (picture rings in the toilet or toothpaste globs in the sink). Basically, it doesn’t get done right and I end up looking for short cuts which we have already mentioned don’t always work. In my case, they rarely work. Soul cleaning is the same. God wants what is best for us. Sometimes that means He sees we aren’t serious about our cleaning so He will give us an “unexpected” to push us into doing what we should have been doing to begin with. You see, even the best laid plans are useless if you don’t implement them. James 2:14 asks “what does it profit if someone says he has faith but does not have works?” There is no spiritual profit if you do nothing. However, you have to do more than just start. Really, can you get all your spring cleaning done in one day? It is the same with soul cleaning…it’s a process that requires self-discipline to complete. I read that “success in any endeavor where self-discipline is involved boils down to this question: can you make yourself do something you don’t particularly want to do in order to get a result you would like to have?” Few people really enjoy soul cleaning. It’s painful at worst and uncomfortable at best. But as Christians we claim that the result we want is to be like Christ, and that means making ourselves do the work.
Don’t forget the closets! These tend to get overlooked in my house because no one ever sees them but me and my family. That being the case I tend to not fret about them so much. The problem with that plan is that the closest is where my kids store their laundry basket. When I don’t pay attention to the closets, over time the clothes hanging in the closet that are off season and have been hanging for up to 6 months w/o being washed begin to take on the odor of that dirty laundry basket. That means extra work for me when I do get around to cleaning the closets because I have to wash clothes that are technically clean but reek. Our souls have spiritual closets as well, those areas of our lives that no one else sees, sometimes not even our spouse or family. We tend to hide our dirty laundry in the closets hoping that the guest (the Spirit) doesn’t look into them. Problem is, guests always go looking. Proverbs 15:11 (NLT) says that even death and destruction hold no secrets from the Lord. How much more does he know the human heart! There isn’t a closet dark enough to secret enough to hide something from God. The struggle to keep our deepest, darkests from Him does nothing but hurt us. Psalm 32:3-5 says When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD"—and you forgave the guilt of my sin.
Once you have done all this work to clean out the yuck, you need to set you mind upon keeping it clean. Few of us invest all the time to spring clean our home and then throw our hands up, say mission accomplished, and quit taking out the trash afterwards, or stop running the vacuum. You try to maintain that sense of peace that a newly scrubbed house brings. The Bible tells us how to maintain that sense of peace. I like how the NCV translates Galatians 5:16-17 So I tell you: Live by following the Spirit. Then you will not do what your sinful selves want. Our sinful selves want what is against the Spirit, and the Spirit wants what is against our sinful selves. The two are against each other, so you cannot do just what you please. If you aren’t walking in the Spirit you are at war. War is not peaceful. So stop warring and let the Son shine in on your newly cleaned soul, Jesus that is.
God ... is the one who invited you into this wonderful friendship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. 1 Cor. 1:9 (NLT) You were not intended to do this alone. God knows you can’t. So now that you have scrubbed your windows, shown Him what is hidden in your closets and started looking to His word as your tools, why not invite some company. Sit down and chat with Jesus every day. Unlike the friends you have here on earth, He may already know what you have to say, but He isn’t going to jump in and tell you how bad His was too. I am not going to tell you that the relationship or conversation will be all about you, but it will be one in which you are the center of His attention. He won’t have to put you on hold to deal with an errant child, or ask to call you back so He can cook supper for his family. Jesus doesn’t have call waiting. When you call He always answers and you will have His undivided attention for the duration of the conversation. He LOVES you and misses you. He wants to know all about your day, your thoughts, your fears. But like any friend it can’t be one way. Be sure to thank Him for the little things He does for you. Did you get an awesome parking space today? Tell Him thanks, He was saving it for you. Did you get just the right words from a friend when things seemed rough today? Thank Him for letting your friend know you were hurting and guiding them to you. He does lots of behind the scenes orchestrating in an effort to look after you. When is the last time you said thank you?
So what are you waiting for? Got your list? Get cleaning girlfriend!
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