Spring Cleaning

It’s that time of year!  I don’t know if by starting now I am hoping that spring cleaning will encourage Spring to arrive or if it will just take me longer to accomplish what I want to do this year.  With Easter coming soon, I am reminded that it is also important that I take time to make sure that I am a “clean” vessel for God to use for His kingdom’s work.  Both types of cleaning have much in common.

* Wishing that something is organized, cleaned, or made right doesn’t make it happen; it takes effort.

* Cleaning out the things that are no longer helpful or useful helps make room for the new and necessary.

* Some projects are going to take more than a few minutes to accomplish.

* Having a plan helps keep the cleaner on track.

* It is good to keep things clean as you go so that you don’t have to do a major overhaul later.

* Sometimes additional help/accountability is needed for the cleaning.

* The longer you let something build up or go, the more time and effort it will take to restore it to what it needs to be or to completely eliminate it.

* Sometimes cleaning can be tedious and time consuming, but the end result will be worth it.

* Once something is clean, it’s important to spend extra time and effort to keep it that way.

Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.

1 Corinthians 3:16-17

 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.

Colossians 3:5-10

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

1 John 1:9

 “Blessed are those
    whose transgressions are forgiven,
    whose sins are covered.
Blessed is the one
    whose sin the Lord will never count against them.”

Romans 4:7-8