Today at church we began a new sermon series entitled "Waste Management". Today's message was about how we as a society and ESPECIALLY in the church, go around with living in a fake world of "fine". How are you? I'm fine. (Even though you may be totally broken and battling incredible obstacles). How are you? I'm fine. (Even though our lives are full of sin). We talked about Revelation 21 and how God can make all things new. We also touched on Romans 3:23 telling us that ALL have sinned.
We spent the majority of the sermon listening about the life of David and his sins that followed his relationship with Bathsheba. When Nathan pointed out the sin in David's life, he didn't make excuses and he didn't make justifications. He immediately agreed that he had sinned against God. That is something that we need to learn to do as well.
The quicker that we can come to the point of admitting our sin, the quicker that God can redeem us and put us back on the right track. We have to realize that we ALL have sin. We all have "junk" in our lives. We have closets full of mistakes and garages full of failures. To say we have no sin is to say that Christ's death on the cross was pointless.
We were issued a challenge to cause us to think about our "junk" and the sin that we carry. Think about your closet. Think about how it contains things that have been disregarded, don't fit or out of style. It has things hidden way in the back or way up high, seemingly out of reach. However, closing the door doesn't make it go away. It's still there. Sin in our lives is the same way. No matter how deep we want to bury it or pretend it isn't there, closing a door isn't going to fix it.
Our challenge was to spend some time early this week cleaning out a closet. Go through and purge all those things that don't belong. Bag it up. Get it ready to throw out or bag it up to donate. However, don't take it out of the house. Sit those bags right in front of the door or some where visible. Step over it a few days. Look at it. Let it be a visible reminder every time we see it. Each time we see it, pray for God to reveal to us sin in our lives, especially the hidden sin we keep the "world" from seeing. Let it symbolize the need of a heart makeover.
Just a couple of weeks ago, I emptied our closet of the "junk". I haven't delivered the donations to Salt & Light yet. I've been annoyed EVERY single time I've walked through the door to the garage because I've had to step over the bags to get in the van. I had planned to take those bags this week, but now I think I will leave them just a few more days. Instead of being annoyed or irritated, those bags will be my visual reminder to pray for God to remove sin from my life and to reveal those deepest sins that I try the hardest to hide from the world. Stuffing it down deep and burying it, doesn't make the sin go away. God is the ONE AND ONLY way for the sin to be removed. I'm positive I won't be looking at those bags this week with the same eyes!
I challenge you to do something similar. Clean out a closet. Clean out one of those pesky junk drawers. Attack any area in your garage, attic, basement or car. Look at the "junk" for a few days before you officially get rid of it. Let it remind you of the need we ALL have to remove sin from our lives.
I'm looking forward to see what next week's challenge will be!
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