Clean House

People's perceptions of what it means to clean house are not identical. Some people would be content with simply cleaning the surface without removing deep layers of grime. Others would feel things were clean if clutter was removed from sight even if it was shoved into a drawer. Then there are those who will devote hours of scrubbing, sorting, and disinfecting and still won't be satisfied with the results. It's our definitions of "clean" that vary and can cause conflict and confusion.

Submitting ourselves to God and asking Him to cleanse us doesn't involve a negotiable definition. We don't get to ask God to extricate us from messy situations, but leave us alone in the sinful habits we are comfortable holding on to. We cannot reserve the right to ask God to pull back on His personality and purification process. We either fully submit to Him or we don't submit at all. If all of God does all that God does, we can't surrender any less. This means that we have to be willing to surrender our mental focus, habits, words, relationships, attitude, aspirations, and behaviors.

If we're going to clean house for God we've got to deep clean the whole house by His standards and not our own.