It’s that time of year again, time for Spring Cleaning. While many of us are cleaning windows and organizing our homes, there is another kind of spring cleaning I want to talk about today – spiritual spring cleaning.
In my personal life, I have been doing some spiritual spring cleaning. A couple weeks ago I watched a teaching by Carol Arnott on keeping a clean heart. She talked about the life of Joseph. She shared all the things he went through, hated by his brothers, betrayed by his own family, sold into slavery, and lied about, put in prison and so on. We all know the story. She went on to share how he kept his heart right through the whole thing.
I thought about this as I listened, I thought about how difficult it must have been for Joseph to keep his heart right and stay in a place where the word of God continually says ‘and God was with him.’ God’s presence never left Joseph.
Carol went on to talk about judging others and exactly how we judge others. I felt I was a person who did not judge others but after listening to her I saw areas in my heart where I was judging others.
To judge means to separate, put asunder, to pick out, select, choose, to approve, esteem, to prefer, to be of opinion, to determine, resolve, decree, to judge and to pronounce an opinion concerning right and wrong.
Now, I am not talking about judging sin, I am talking about a judgmental spirit. To be judgmental is defined as having or displaying an excessively critical point of view. And then pronouncing that judgment with your words…ouch!
I began to ask the Holy Spirit to shine a light on my heart and bring to light anything and everything in my heart that is not pleasing to God. I ask him specifically to show me areas where I was judging in any manner. And he was faithful to show me those things.
As he showed me I repented and ask him to help me keep a clean heart at all times. You know, we see things going on around in, in our world, in our government and other areas and we begin to have a critical point of view and then we give voice to that point of view – that is not the heart of God. His heart is to pray and pray and pray some more. Even if he shows us that things are going wrong, I still believe it is his heart to redeem, restore, deliver and it is our part to love and judge righteously as we allow God to show us their heart.
God is a God of love and forgiveness. I thank God that he shows me mercy when I need mercy, which is a lot. I thank God that he looks on my heart and knows my heart.
The bible says in Psalm 51:10 says; Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
How do we do that? Hebrews 10 says; let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.
If you want God to do a Spring Cleaning of your heart, it is simple, draw near to God and ask him to shine a light on your heart and show you anything and everything in your heart that is not pleasing to him. He will answer that prayer.
It is time for Spring Cleaning, let’s begin with the heart.
