Moving in Sun Light

This past year for Christmas my husband and I  purchased new living room furniture as a gift to one another.  The items were not scheduled to be delivered until mid January.  Time finally came for the furniture to arrive and we realized that we had to get rid of our existing furniture to make space.  As we prepared the room for the delivery we began to remove everything off the end and coffee tables and pulled out all the artificial greenery, plants and baskets.  Soon I began to realize that what I thought had looked good was actually a cluttered mess. It was just too many accessories-unnecessary items in the room.   

The furniture that we had thought was still in such good shape began to take on a whole different appearance as we took it outside.  In our artificially, often dimly,  lit home we felt we might have purchased new furniture prematurely.  As we came into the sun light though,  we realized what we thought looked good had a few tears and some worn and frayed spots. The sun light revealed its real condition and it wasn't good.

Something else became very apparent to us as well.  Because we were going to be giving this furniture away we vacuumed it thoroughly, so as to remove any dust and dog hair.  Yet, as we brought the chairs into the sun light we began to see the cleaning job we did failed to get rid of the dust and hair.  The sun revealed that our job of cleaning it up had been inadequate. 

Soon God began to  help me realize that for many of us our hearts and lives have become much like my home. A close inspection of our lives will often reveal a significant amount of clutter.  Unfortunately we have grown so accustomed to all of the"stuff"  in our lives  that we hardly seem to notice that it has become a problem.  For some of us our clutter is out there for everyone to see, but at other times we keep the junk behind closed doors, hoping no one will know that it is there.  We would be ashamed if someone were to open up our closet and see what we have stuffed in there.

Certainly you understand that I am speaking in a spiritual sense.  Our lives have become cluttered with materialism,technology,  pride, gluttony, greed, self indulgence, inappropriate language,  anger or a critical spirit-to mention just a few. Often we have stuffed the closet of our hearts full of what we certainly don't want anyone else to know about such as lust, an inappropriate thought life,bitterness, prejudice,  alcohol or covetness.  Perhaps I didn't mention your particular clutter but we all have it.  Even that which we try to hide from others cannot be hidden from God.  He said in Jeremiah,

" My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from me, nor is their sin concealed from my eyes."  Jeremiah 23:24

The scripture tells us that God's Word is like a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.  It illuminates the way we should go .  We can be assured when we begin to let the light of God's Word in that it will expose those areas of our lives that we need to clean up and what we are to do about it. 

"Surely you desire truth in my inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place." Psalm 51:6

"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. " Psalm 51:17

You see we can't clean up our lives apart from God because first, we are often blind to what needs to be gone our of our lives.    Secondly, even when we do see what needs to go it is still impossible for us to get rid of all our dirt-all our sin completely. 

Never on our own will we be good enough to eliminate sin from our life.  It is our nature and no matter how hard we try to get rid of it the sin will still be there. Just as we couldn't seem to get all the dust and hair off the chairs on our own we can't clean ourselves up enough. It is only through Jesus that we become clean.

"God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.  If we claim to have fellowship with him, yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.  But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, His Son purifies us from all sin.  If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."  1John 1:5b-9

As we confess our sins to God it is the blood of Christ that provides the cleansing for us.  That blood cleanses us like nothing else will ever cleanse.  The fantastic part is that when Jesus Christ comes into our life, the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5:17 that all the old has gone and the new has come.  We are new creations in Him.

My new furniture has  arrived and it is beautiful, but it will grow old and become tattered and torn again.  Praise be to God that the life He gives is always new!!!