DO YOU WANT TO LOOK CLEAN OR BE CLEAN?

DO YOU WANT TO LOOK CLEAN OR BE CLEAN?

As I was preparing my oats this morning I dropped a few on the kitchen floor. As I was picking up each tiny piece I questioned myself; “Why are you picking-up each oat fragment?” “So that there is nothing left to attract bugs or mice; to be clean”. As an after thought I added, “And I wouldn’t want anyone to come in and see oats spilled on the floor”.

I then thought of the TV program “Hoaders”. Hoaders is a show about people who fill their houses to overflowing with “stuff” and trash, often until the house is no longer fit to be lived in. The question often arises, “How did the house get like this?” The reply is always the same; “It wasn’t always like this, it just started out little and got worse and worse as time went on.”

Another common thread is that the people who live in these houses do not allow the “outside world” into their home in order to continue to prevent others from knowing how they actually live.

Seems to me that the same can be said and is a fair description of sin; “It wasn’t always like this, it just started out little and got worse and worse as time went on.” It is also true that most of us have been taught to hide our “dirt” rather than addressing it before it consumes our lives.

The hoarders are missing something within them that encourages them to be clean and yet they know enough to want to look clean.

Like the hoarders the institutional church and many ‘believers” seem to be much more concerned about looking clean than actually being clean; Mr. Brown may be cheating on his wife, but as long as Mr. Brown the Attorney is faithful in his attendance and his giving, Mr. Brown; the sinner is unlikely to be confronted by Mr. Brown’s pastor. Mrs. Sims may be agoraphobic and lonely, but unless Mrs. Sims somehow comes to us, we aren’t going to bother going to her. John Jones may look disheveled and may be vocal about his temptations and weaknesses; well, a lot of churches will wish him well in his efforts to find another church to worship in, while telling themselves, “He really just doesn’t fit in with us”.

Jesus said, "What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs--beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people's bones and all sorts of impurity.”
So the question for us all to consider; do we address the dirt in our lives in order to be clean and free from the disease of sin or do we keep others pushed out of our real lives so that we will continue to appear clean? Think about it.