Psalm 51:9-10, “Hide Thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.”
A great cartoon shows a chubby, forlorn figure in a bathrobe and shower cap standing on a bathroom scale. Dejectedly he says, “My body is not my temple; it’s my garage.” When I saw that cartoon, I immediately thought about my actual garage. It’s the place where we put everything for which we have no place. Before long, the clutter is unbelievable. Frankly, there have been times when I have been ashamed to open my garage door. My neighbor fastidiously keeps his garage in order. Our garage doors face each other, compounding my guilt. Sick of the clutter, I sometimes dedicate a Saturday to cleaning it up. By the end of the day, the clutter is gone. I feel so good I would like to leave the garage door open for a week to let everyone see how the Stowells keep their property!
I wonder if God sometimes feels as if He’s living in our messy garage when it comes to our hearts and minds. We accumulate a lot of clutter, and we think we can hide it by covering it up with an attractive exterior. But eventually it shows. Garbage in; garbage out. Because our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. We cannot wink at an untidy dwelling place. Take a spiritual workday and discard the thoughts of bitterness. Bag and throw away the old patterns of sexual fantasy. Put memories in their proper place. Organize attitudes. Fill your heart with the virtues found in God’s Word. Make your spiritual residence clean to the core. Love so that you can leave the door open for all to see.
In fact, figuratively speaking, it might be good to place a sign around our neck that says in nig letters, “God lives here.” I think we would think, act, and react in a new light if that sign were visible for all to see. Can you imagine cultivating an affair while wearing a sign like that? Or attacking someone verbally? Instead, people might see a little more of what Christ really looks like.
What is cluttering your life? Today’s devotion is adapted from Strength for the Journey: Day By Day With Jesus written byJoseph M. Stowell and published by Moody Publishers.
