Time To Clean House

2 Corinthians 7:1
Therefore having these promises beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

Every year about this time, we would go through the house and really clean. My mother called it, “Spring Cleaning.” We would wash the windows with vinegar and water, take the mattress outside to beat the dust out of them, clean out the closets giving old stuff away, and shampoo the carpets. It was a thorough cleaning. We cleaned up the accumulated filth from the winter as a result of fresh air not being able to flow through the house.

The other day I cleaned out my ducts at my place of business that I started three years ago. Those ducts probably hadn’t been cleaned out in decades. I had made some major renovations, moved in new furniture, but I hadn’t cleaned the ducts. When that man put the blower in the ducts, dust flew everywhere. Dust over time becomes dirt and dirt can make your sick. It didn’t do any good to put new stuff in a building with dirty vents. The same is true for your life. What good does it do to add the trappings of success when your spiritual ventilation is filled with dust? It’s time to clean house.

There are some things in your house that you must clean up if you are not going to be spiritually and physically sick.

1. Divisions amongst family and staff. A house divided against itself cannot stand. There are a couple of teams that have gotten rid of some star players this year because they didn’t need the distraction. The Cowboys got rid of TO and New York got rid of Plaxico. Two great players but they were more of a distraction than a blessing. Who do you need to let go on your team or at least try to reconcile with? Either you train them to be a team player or you trade them somewhere else.

2. Unforgiveness. Unforgiveness is the dust in your heart that clogs up your ability to truly love God and others. The natural flow of love is when God forgives you, he expects for you to forgive others. When you don’t forgive others it causes a back up in heaven for grace because God says if you don’t forgive others, I will not forgive you.

3. Sexual immorality. Every other sin a man commits is outside his body, but when you commit sexual sin you sin against your own body. Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. God cannot dwell in an unclean temple. Sexual immorality is any kind of sex you have outside the marriage bed. Take that mattress outside and clean it. When you are married the marriage bed is undefiled.

4. Pride. Over time we all get to the place where we begin to lose our humility. We start to think more highly of ourselves than we ought to. Pride comes before the fall. Check yourself before you wreck yourself.

5. Any contaminates of the flesh and the Sprit. We should do a sweep to make sure there is nothing inside of us that can jeopardize our holiness. Before Passover, a Jewish woman would sweep her house clean to make sure there was no yeast in the house that would defile the Passover bread. Yeast is an ingredient that makes bread rise. For Passover, they were supposed to have flat bread. What is it in your house that might cause sin to rise and mess up what you offer to God?

We should always be perfecting holiness. This is something we will be doing the rest of our lives. Every year, there is a need to clean our house of accumulated debris so small it could go unnoticed until, that is, your whole house gets sick. It's time to clean house.

Dear God, please clean up my house, my business, my life. If you find anything that’s not like you, take it out. My desire is to please you. Search me and know my thoughts. Purge me with hyssop and wash me whiter than snow. Forgive me of my sins then I will teach transgressors your ways.

In Jesus Name.

Amen