Cleaning Up

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DAILY DEVOTIONAL THURSDAY MARCH 6, 2003
(Isaiah 1:16, 2 Corinthians 7:1, 2 Timothy 2:21, James 4:8)

Oh, wash yourselves! Be clean! Let me no longer see you doing all these wicked things; quit your evil ways.

Having such great promises as these, dear friends, let us turn away from everything wrong, whether of body or spirit, and purify ourselves, living in the wholesome fear of God, giving ourselves to him alone.

If you stay away from sin you will be like one of these dishes made of purest gold--the very best in the house--so that Christ himself can use you for his highest purposes.

And when you draw close to God, God will draw close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and let your hearts be filled with God alone to make them pure and true to him.

Cleaning up. Last Saturday I finally did something that I had been putting off for months, I cleaned out my office. It had been over a year since I had taken the time to clean out my office, and I was amazed at all of the "stuff" I had accumulated in that time. It took several hours to go through everything, throw out the things that I had no use for, put many items in storage that I needed to keep but were not necessary on a daily basis, and to get my office back in tip-top shape again. When I was done, it looked like an entirely different place.

As I sat down and was reflecting on how it had gotten so out of control in just a year, I realized that it was because each day I was focused on the important issues of that day. My office is where I spend a great amount of time each day working. It is very organized, functional, and efficient. However, in the day to day course of doing business, things that were not important or vital to the daily operations came in to my office and got pushed to the side, "piles" would grow in the corners of things that I didn't need to deal with immediately, and after weeks and months of this it became a mess.

Driving home that evening, I was chatting with the Lord about a few things, when all of a sudden the Holy Spirit began to show me how much our lives were just like my office. We get so focused on our day to day existence, we get into a familiar routine that "works" for us, we learn how to deal with all that we have to face each day. In the course of living our lives each day, we end up accumulating lots of extra "stuff." Over time, we actually end up getting into a rut, where just getting from one day to the next can be the biggest goal. We eventually become so weighed down by everything that our life gets totally out of control.

The "stuff" I had accumulated in my office were things that really were not important, things that I had no need of, and things that ended up making my office a mess. During that time on Saturday, just getting rid of that extra "stuff" made my office clean, fresh, and back into a great place to work each day. The "stuff" in your life that you pick up along your journey are those things that are not pleasing to God. Things that creep into your day to day life that end up making your life less then what God intends it to be. It is those things that we end up "living with" because we are simply too lazy to get rid of them.

I love you and care about you so much. This is a simple, but VERY IMPORTANT word for you today. Just like we have to take the time once in a while to clean out our office, to clean out our home, to clean out our car... we must also take the time once in a while to clean out our life!!! On a regular basis we need to sit down with the Lord, and go through all of the "things" that in our life, and throw out what is not making our life better so that we can operate at peak efficiency every day.

I want to encourage you today to take some time in the next 48 hours to sit down in a quiet place with a pen and paper, and take an inventory of your life. Go over every area of your life and keep those things that are positive, that are helping you in your daily journey, and get rid of all of the things in your life that might be holding you down. God wants the very best from us each day. We can never forget that each day is truly a gift from God. Tomorrow is NOT promised to us. So we MUST get the most out of each day. To do that, we need to sit down on a regular basis, and "clean up" our life.

In His love and service,
Your friend and brother in Christ,
Bill Keller

If I can help you in any way you can contact me through my personal email at bkeller@liveprayer.com.

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