Spring Cleaning

So, in the dorms we have this thing called white glove at the end of every semester.  The resident director of our dorms comes down the hall and checks are room and grades how clean it is.  This is not tidiness, this is for cleanliness. You have to clean the baseboards, toilets, and shower drains.  It is so stressful because if you fail you have to pay money and do it all over again. We was not going to happen.  So, my mentor gave us all jobs to do and my roommates and I started cleaning.  Once I started, I couldn't stop.

If you know me my room is rarely clean, the only reason why it's clean at my house is my parents are in control of it now.

Most people think that I don't know how to clean, or just don't care and that's why my room is dirty.

The truth is, I don't clean because once I start cleaning I can't stop. I hate it.  I'm a perfectionist, and once I start cleaning that is all I can see, dirt and imperfections.

Then, I thought most of the time this is my view of God that He is my resident director tirelessly searching every room of my heart, and all he can see is my dirt and imperfections.   Then when I fail, He fines me.

Yet, this is not true, when God looks at me He doesn't say "Wow, what a sinner." Instead, He says, "Look at the girl I have redeemed."  He doesn't say, "Wow, look at what a mess you made," but says "Wow, look at my beautiful and precious daughter."

Here me now: God is not just sitting there waiting for you to mess up, and He is not just scanning for dust.  If you have been saved, you are the righteousness of God and He is standing up cheering you on waiting to see you succeed. 

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God 2 Corinthians 5:21

God doesn't give us demerits; God gives us merits.  When I was in dance and cheerleading there was a demerit system, if you got a certain amount of demerits than you were kicked off the team.  You got demerits for not wearing the right clothes or being late.

Yet, God's kingdom doesn't work this way, every time we mess up He doesn't give us demerits rather every time we do something right He gives us an eternal reward.  Hey, I'm liking this system!!!

Now, back to the cleaning, when I have an incorrect view of God, it makes me consumed with how I look to him.   I want to clean my heart over and over, yet I don't have the power to clean my heart.  Cleaning my heart, is like what the pharisees did, and let me just say that didn't work out of them.

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. Matthew 23:27

Imagine cleaning the bathroom floor with a toothbrush and the spit from you mouth, that is you cleaning yourself.  Plus, we are tiring ourself out and not getting anywhere, wasting our time trying to clean ourselves when we should be serving others.

So, instead of cleaning ourselves and being so consumed with our actions.  We must let God change our heart.  We must hand him the toothbrush and say, "I give up; I can't do this myself."

For God says that even our good works are like filthy rags.

God doesn't want perfection: He already has that in His son.  God just wants you, all of you, because He is deeply in love with you.  

So, let us get washed in the cleansing flow of Jesus's blood.  Let him wash our sins as white as snow.  Let us be refreshed because cleaning our hearts isn't up to us, because when He said, "It is finished"; He meant it.   Let us see God as a generous God giving us merits, and not a warden roaming the hall of our heart looking for trouble.  He is a generous man willing to pick us up when we fall and clean us up afterwards.  He is beautiful.  I love you God, Thank you for your word.

I know people need to hear this because I have to remind myself this a whole lot.  So, do me a favor and share this, so that many people can see God in a new way.