Cleaning Time

It amazes me how fast things can get cluttered in the home. It takes forever to get a space cleaned out, and if we are not careful, within a few months, things seem to just pile right back up. It is so frustrating. We always think that we will just put something there for just a moment, and then we will be back to put it in its proper place. Then we forget, and then the next thing gets thrown into that room, then the next, then the next. The next thing we know, we have to take a whole day, or a couple of days, and clean it all out once again. Many times, we will find stuff in that space that doesn’t even belong there. We don’t even know how it got there. In my case, it was probably the kids or the wife.

Today I want to talk about spiritual clutter. Before we are saved, there are so many things that take priority in our lives, and the truth is that most of it is not good for us. Then the day came that we heard the voice of the Holy Spirit, and we gave our lives to Christ. When that happened, there was a spiritual cleaning of our lives. We are no longer the same. But then life happens, and if we are not careful, things begin to crawl back into our lives that just don’t belong. This happened in the life of Israel. A people called out by the Lord to be a nation of priests, but they soon forgot and turned away from their purpose. They allowed horrible things into the temple that was supposed to be set apart for the worship of God.

But then a king rose by the name of Josiah. Josiah became king when he was eight years old, and as he grew up, the Bible tells us that he did what was right in the Lord’s sight. The last part of verse 2 of chapter 34 in the book of II Chronicles says this about him, “did not turn aside to the right or to the left.” In his desire to be faithful to God Almighty, this young king did something amazing. He started in the land. Verse 7 of the same book and chapter says this, “he also tore down the altars and beat the Asherim and the carved images into powder, and chopped down all the incense altars throughout the land of Israel. Then he returned to Jerusalem.” Josiah didn’t stop there; he commanded that the temple be cleaned out and all the garbage that didn’t belong be removed. This is something that must be done in our lives. We need to search our hearts and allow the Lord to point out the garbage that is there and ask Him to help us remove it all. Let our lives and our hearts be set aside only for the worship of the true God. We must not allow the gods and the false idols of the world into that which belongs to our Lord. I finish with verse 33, “Josiah removed all the abominations from all the lands belonging to the sons of Israel, and made all who were present in Israel to serve the Lord their God. Throughout his lifetime they did not turn from following the Lord God of their fathers.” So, let us get to cleaning and let this be said of us all.