Don't judge me---you know we all do it.
It's that desperate sprint that happens on a Sunday afternoon when you planned on being lazy and doing absolutely nothing, you're in your pajamas with your make up off and your hair a mess, when all of a sudden the phone rings and your friend says they will be dropping by later in the afternoon.
Suddenly you're in a panic.
You've got only minutes to clean the bathroom, hide everything that should've been put away earlier, and get rid of all the dirt that you'd become accustomed to living with and basically decided your family could just cope with.
Then somewhere as you're running the vacuum, spraying Lysol, and trying to find some clean clothes to put on all at the same time you begin to wonder "Why am I OK living with this dirt all weekend long and I just bothered by it when friends come to visit?"
You start to think maybe you should've cleaned it up before you got the phone call. After all, how did you not see it before when now it's just glaring out at you?
Like I said before don't judge me. We've all been there.
The other day, as I was living through this predicament, vacuuming, cleaning, and trying to do something with my hair, I started to think how much this is like the sin we tolerate in our lives. For the most part, it just goes unnoticed. We're so comfortable with that we barely even recognize that it's there anymore until someone points it out or we feel the Holy Spirit's conviction.
That's when we ask ourselves "Why didn't I realize this was wrong? How did I become so comfortable with the sin that I didn't even realize it was there?
Is it possible that I need to spend a little more time doing the maintenance of repenting and spending time with Jesus so that sin doesn't build up like that hidden dust built up in the corner of my living room?
The truth was that the little bit of dirt and mess that was around my house really was no big deal. I'd have gotten to it the next day.
Yet the sin that is in our lives is a huge deal and we need to be careful that we don't become so comfortable with it, so just used to ignoring it, that we don't remove it and keep our hearts clean and pure before God.
Daily we need to be going in prayer and saying to the Holy Spirit "Create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me."
We need to open ourselves up to the Holy Spirit's conviction so that sin---even the tiniest little bit--- doesn't take up residence in our heart and become a comfortable place in our conscience.
When we do see sin in our lives we need to remove it----just as quickly as I removed everything that wasn't in its proper place, every piece of dust and every crumb that was on the floor of my house when I got the call saying my friends were coming to visit.
No, I'm not judging you. We all deal with sin just like we all deal with dirt and crumbs. The only cure is to see it and get it out of our lives so that we can stand clear and pure before God.
Today's question: Do you need to do some cleanup?
Let's get right on it just like I did after the phone rang.
