Our family Christmas is like a reunion. Our children and grandchildren all live and work in different areas. They all serve in Fundamental Baptist churches so their lives are busy. Their work hours also vary, keeping them from visiting each other much of the year. But when Family Christmas rolls around, they do their best to get here to hug each other, share their own special stories of their year, and just enjoy each other’s company!
One day before Family Christmas I decided to clean the garage and bring people in through it, rather than have them enter by way of the “too small” front porch, which has a storm-door that tends to bang shut when released, shoving the last person through with a jolt!
We do not have a blacktop or cement driveway so dirt and silt are carried into the garage on the car’s tires. Because I had neglected it too long, I had a lot of the stuff to sweep up and clean off the garage floor. If I had not done that, our visitors would have been dragging dirt into the house, causing filth inside our home! I would not have been happy if all, or even part, of that dirt got dragged in! So, I made the decision to remove the dirt. I had to use two different brooms followed by a couple of buckets of hot soapy water; what a job! But, with the cleaning done, the garage held no more threat to my house. What a blessing!
Now that just reminds me of the Christians’ lives, and how we can get the dirt and silt from the world back into our spiritual lives through the brain, our physical garage. This world and it’s wickedness is literally raining down around us, washing its’ dirt into our lives and settling in the flesh’s garage, the brain. From there it can easily be carried into our very lives, leaving the Holy Sirit within our house grieved! Therefore it must be cleaned out, and the oftener, the better!
The Word of God, and sincere prayer of confession are two of God’s brooms He gave us to keep filth swept up and cleaned out. The blood of Jesus still washes away confessed sin like the buckets of hot, soapy water.
We need to check our human garages to see what filth has gotten in there, and we need to read, or remind ourselves, of God’s Word, confess our faults to him, and then guard our human garages, so that we are no longer carrying the dirt back in!
