Sanctification

Time To Get Cleaning!
In that devotion, I talked about how amazing it is that the God of the universe has made our hearts His home. However, if you’re like me, there may have also been a bit of panic from that thought. It’s the same bit of panic I might feel before you come to my house and I realize the condition I’ve allowed my house to get into since the last time someone came and visited.

When I know people are coming to visit my home, I pick up the clutter and clean the house. I want my house to be nice and welcoming.

But How Do I Clean My Heart?
In this analogy, you might think the next thing to say is that you should clean up the clutter of your life and scrub all the gross sinful parts away before Jesus comes (or at least once He’s there). However, that’s not the next thing to say because you can’t clean the house of your life up and Jesus isn’t just coming to visit.

If you’ve ever asked a really dirty 4-year-old to clean up, you know that it doesn’t really work. Sure, for the first minute or so they try. Unfortunately, because they are dirty all over and don’t really know what they are doing, the dirt just gets moved around. You may even end up with dirt in places where there was no dirt before. Then, of course, that minute is up and they get distracted. They stop even trying to clean up and just start playing in the dirt again.

We’re all sinners through and through. Even when we try to clean up our act, it doesn’t go well and we may even end up dirtier than we started…and that’s when we’re trying. Like the 4-year-old, we usually get distracted pretty quickly and end up right back in the sin.

Jesus Is Better Than Mr. Clean
Jesus doesn’t expect us to clean our lives up. He knows we can’t. Instead, He cleans it up for us. He washes us in our Baptism. He not only gets the obvious dirty spots, but every nook and cranny until every part of us is clean, holy, and righteous.

“though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow;“

Yes, we should strive to not continue to dirty up the place, but the truth is we’re all sinful slobs. Thankfully, Jesus doesn’t tire of cleaning us up. After all, It’s His home, now, and Jesus wants to live in a clean home.

That’s why the life of a Christian is a life of repentance.

Repentance isn’t a one-time act that we do when we become a Christian, it’s our new way of life. We go to the cross to be saved and we don’t leave. Jesus continues to wash us clean day in and day out until that day when He returns at, at last, sin is no more.

Dear Jesus,

I confess that my heart is dirty with sin through and through. I can’t clean myself and, honestly, sometimes I don’t want to. Change my heart to desire what is good and hate what is evil. Please forgive me and wash me clean. Continue to lead me back to Your cross in repentance day in and day out, trusting that even though I still struggle with sin, You have cleansed me thoroughly. 

Amen.