Clean your house

As I was deep cleaning my home one Saturday morning and I entered  one of my children’s rooms, I noticed I was a little frustrated. I am positive I told this child several times to clean. Here I am on a Saturday morning sweeping, dusting and rearranging this room because it was DIRTY. Since I am task oriented, I was tackling each job and checking off the boxes in no time. Feeling accomplished and satisfied with the way the house was coming together.  It hit me, while I was in my child’s room  this is what happens when we allow Jesus in our life. He comes in and cleans our house.  He goes through all the nooks and crannies, clears the dust, rearranges our furniture to find more dust, wipes away the grime, sweeps and mops our floors and washes all our dirty laundry.  

As I tackled the big stuff, I exited the room and  I had a conversation with my child, who is almost an adult. I let ‘em know that it is their responsibility to keep their room clean. I said “ I cleaned it this time but you have to keep up with it, there is no reason that room should be that dirty, you have all the tools to keep it clean, a vacuum, paper towels, and a cleanser.”  I even went on to say “there is no reason to live in filth.” 

Here’s the thing: When we receive Jesus, he  comes and cleans us up !  Everytime we fall short we can call on Him to come and clean us up. When this child’s room is messy again and comes to me for help. You bet I am going to help him. 

Once He cleans us up, we must put safeguards to protect it. We have a nice clean house, orderly and tidy. It is up to us to maintain it. If you have no safeguards before you know it, you’ve got laundry everywhere, you have so much dust your furniture can’t hide it. You have people in your house that make a mess, they do not honor your temple and do not take your God seriously. And you can find yourself so deceived by the filth that you do not fight to protect your house because you think it fun, it’s not that big of a deal, “I can start over tomorrow” is what you tell yourself. The familiarity takes over and you do not want to ask for help. Maybe you're ashamed, maybe you like it, or maybe you have stopped pursuing Him and forgot what He felt like, What He looks like and how much He loves you!  

Here’s the truth: He will clean you up over and over again if you would just let Him. There will come a day where you will no longer desire the filth and your house will be clean. It will be clean not because you asked for help one Saturday morning, it will be cleaned because every day you asked Him for help. Everyday you invited Him to help you dust, sweep, and  rearrange the furniture. It’s the daily communion with Him that keeps us clean.  We have all tools to keep our house clean, we have His word, we have our testimonies and we have community. It is up to us t utilize it .

“Now when the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, it roams through waterless (dry, arid) places in search of rest, but it does not find it. 44 Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it arrives, it finds the place unoccupied, swept, and put in order. 45 Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and make their home there. And the last condition of that man becomes worse than the first. So will it also be with this wicked generation.” Matthew 12:43-45