How to clean your house

1 Corinthians 6:12-20 reminds us that our body belongs to the Lord once we are a child of God. “Now the body is…for the Lord; and the Lord for the body.” 1 Corinthians 6:13. What we do with our physical self matters to God. (This includes your mind, your outward appearance, your health, etc.) So how do we “clean it up” or make changes? It all has to start with a changed nature. Any change we portray on the outside always starts from the inside. And a lot of the same “cleaning” principles we use with our physical house we live in, can be used in application to the ‘cleaning up’ of our body, which is the temple of God. (1 Corinthians 6:19) Let’s take a look…

Step 1: Read the labels.

Know the right cleaners to use. You would never want to use wood polish on glass windows. Just like you wouldn’t want to use steel wool to clean your grandmother’s china. Likewise, when you want to change something about yourself, or you feel led by the Holy Spirit to make some changes – read the directions! Go to the word of God for your “cleaning” instructions. Don’t go to anyone else. We all have our own ideas of what a cleaned-up lifestyle looks like. But living a holy lifestyle isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. God doesn’t convict everyone to make the same changes at the same times. Let’s leave the cleaning process up to God. It’s between “HE” and “THEE”.

Step 2: One room at a time.

Don’t ever try to clean all the rooms in your house at one time. When you take the “one room at a time” approach, more gets accomplished, and you don’t get so overwhelmed. (And you will be less likely to skip a step.) Likewise, it may be tempting to try to change many things about your life all at once. Especially if you are a new Christian. You may think “I need to stop doing X…Y….Z…”, or you might want to incorporate many new things in your life all at once. Take it one day, one step, one change at a time. When we try to do too much in our own power, we get burned out. Rely on God to show you where to start, and what the next step in your walk with Him is. One ‘room’ at a time.

Step 3: Let go of the clutter.

Clutter is distracting. It takes up space. It is overwhelming. Here’s a dirty little secret of mine: Half of the things in my linen closet don’t get used anymore. But I keep them around because of one of two reasons. Either 1) I can’t bring myself to part with them because “I might need them again someday”, or 2) It’s too much work to go through and clean out the closet. This is similar to old habits and things we hold onto in our personal lives. Maybe it’s the anger. Perhaps it is the hurt you carry with you everywhere over a wrong committed by a friend. Whatever your personal “clutter” is, you’ve got to let it go. Life is too short to try to hold on to every burden that comes your way. Pray through it. Set down the heavy things. God never meant for you to carry those things around.

The Christian life is an ever-growing, ever-changing, ever-learning process! It doesn’t happen all at once. Just like in our homes there is always something that can be spruced up, we can each use some cleaning up/self improvement now and then.