Godly Cleaning

Ok guys, I have a confession to make to all of you. I suffer from a small little disorder called DCOIS syndrome (also known as "Doesn't Clean as Often as I Should" syndrome), especially when it comes to my bathroom. Yeah, it's a mess. Is that a crime now? It is? Well, it's a good thing that I learned a way to keep me cleaning then.

Today my mom told me to clean my bathroom. So I did, grumbling the whole time but stiil cleaning. I decided to tackle my bathtub first. So, with a sponge and Clorox Bleach in my hand, I started to beat down my filthy enemy. Funny thing is that I started enjoying cleaning. I realized that everything I did while cleaning could be related back to our relationship with God. I've lost you, haven't I? Let me explain. Think of the Clorox Bleach and sponge as God and our connection to Him. Think of the bathtub as yourself and the grime in it as our sins. Is it starting to become clear now?

Like I said earliler, I suffer from DCOIS syndrome. Because I suffer from it, the grime in my tub was starting to build up and become visible. Gross, I know, but relate it to our sins. When we start sinning we usually start small, something that doesn't change us completely in anybody's eyes. But if not treated, those sins start to grow and pile up and create a huge mess. That's where our God bleach comes in. He gives us what we need to clean up that mess in the form of salvation and love. His redeeming love changes us and makes us want to be better than who we were. However, we can't just rely on God to fix everything and make it all pretty and sparkly again, just like how spraying Clorox won't clean the tub right away either. We have to do work to fix it as well. We need to scrub the grim away a little bit at a time, giving it continuous attention and work. Little by little, it starts to go away. This is true of our faith too. When we accept Christ, we can't just believe that everything is alright and that we don't have to do anything about our past mistakes. This is not true! We have to go back and start fixing everything a little bit at a time by reading the Bible, going to church, and not settling for anything less than the righteousness and purity God wants and calls for us to have. If we don't then our sins will just keep growing, regardless of how many times you accept God into your life.

Living for God is not easy. It never has been and never will be. I know this very well. The enemy will try extremely hard to put some doubt into your relationship with Christ and will use every opportunity to throw obstacles in your path. It's just like your skin becoming irritated because of the bleach. Your skin will start to burn because of it and you have to stop cleaning to go treat it real quickly. It's the same thing with your relationship. The enemy will do something in your life that will create a wound or burn in your faith. Now, I'm not saying to stop cleaning up your sins, but you need to just take time to reassure yourself of God's love for you and to treat that burn the enemy gave you. Go read the Bible, pray, and talk with other christian friends about it. This will help more than you know, I've experienced it several times myself. There is no easy way to live a righteous life, no matter how you look at it. Even if the enemy wasn't attacking, you would still need to scrub the sins away. It's hard work, but extremely rewarding. I may not like cleaning very much, yet when it's all pretty and clean again I find a great happiness and pride inside of me. Now relate that to the cleaning you do for God. Just think of how ecstatic both you and God will feel when you scrub all the sins in your life away! God already loves you the way you are, but He wants us to be pure and righteous as well. Naturally, the enemy wants exactly the opposite. Which is why he'll keep attacking and trying to make those sins grow back. We need to be careful of this and constantly clean up our sins before they have a chance to grow too large and nasty.

Now, I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure I'll never look at cleaning up my bathtub the same way again. In fact, I probably won' t be able to stop cleaning up my bathtub whenever I start feeling tempted because it will remind me of how God wants to move in our lives.

James 1:21, James 3:2, Romans 12:1-2, Ephesians 6:10-18, John 8:34

And finally, any prayer requests?