Clean it up!

Every once in a while, I find a scripture that causes me to stop, take a look at myself, and see that some adjustments need to be made. Here is the scripture:

II Chronicles 29:16

The priests went into the sanctuary of the Lord to purify it. They brought out to the courtyard of the Lord's temple everythng unclean that they found in the temple of the Lord.

My pastor did a sermon a few months ago called "Tents". He explained how our bodies (our hearts) serve as housing for the Lord. He explained that when we live our lives for Jesus, we share our bodies, and our hearts with Him. Anything that we keep in our "tent" can either make Jesus comfortable or make Him very uncomfortable. He spoke about cleaning up our tents and removing any sin or uncleanliness that might cause us to stumble, or might offend our living buddy Jesus.

I wonder if stumbling on this scripture last night, was an indication that I might not have done a very good "clean up" job. Now...you'd think that being that I am a clean freak (recovering) that I would have ran with this and done an entire "tent" cleaning on myself. You would think I would have been an expert at it. Yeh....well...not exactly. If only it were that easy. If only a little lemon lysol and windex could clean out my heart. It doesn't work like that.

Here are some things that we may keep in our hearts (tents) that we may not think is harming us:

1. disbelief, worry or doubt

2. hate

3. envy

4. anger

5. jealousy

6. love of anything that would come before God

7. gossip

8. unforgiveness

9. old habits that do not glorify God

There are many more...but I only wanted to name a few. These are all too familiar to me. The scripture points out that these things are "unclean". These things are causing our lives to be dirty...our tents to be unclean. I wonder how Jesus feels about the environment that He is living in? I wonder...if it's not time...to clean it up...

Dear God...open my eyes to the things that are unclean in my life. Cause me to see what you see in me, whether it be something clean or unclean. Help me strengthen in areas that I have weakness. Be my strength and my shield. Teach me to shut out things that may harm me in any way. Remind me that I need You in all areas of my life. Help me to be an example of your cleansing power. To You Lord be all the Glory and Honor!

Psalms 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me.

Psalm 119:11 Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against you!

Romans 14:8 If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or dies, we are the Lord's.