Voyagers at Home | May 24, 2020

Pause to Prepare

• The word to pause on today is “clean.” When we think of the word clean what images comes to mind?

• We might think of cleaning tools or disinfectants. We might think of a picturesque, put together and decorated living room with pristine base boards. It could be a fresh shaven face, mountain-top air, a family friendly joke, Mr. Clean and his sparkly head, a fish bowl that even you would live in, produce from the expensive section of the grocery store. The list goes on and on, but regardless of what comes to mind, it probably includes two things: it is only temporarily clean and it illuminates the things that are messy or dirty around it.  For us clean is usually an ideal. We pay for clean. We create chore-charts for clean. We even take pictures for social media of clean.  The sad part is, if we are being honest, we can usually identify the places that fall short of being clean much easier.  Clean can make us feel guilty. Clean can create division and initiate arguments. Clean can even causes deep jealousy of others and dissatisfaction in our selves.

• Can you identify with any of this?

• All of this need for clean reminds us of our temporary residency here on earth. Our body, mind and soul long for a permanent, internal, and eternal clean. A clean that we can’t afford, earn, nor do we deserve, because as much as we crave for clean outside, it’s the clean inside that we long for and that keeps us up at night, distant from God and even projecting our mess onto others.

• Here’s the good news: God is in the cleaning business and He cares about your mess. So much so that He did something about it to eradicate it forever.

• John 15:3-5: “Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” We are already clean because of God’s Word becoming real to us by the person of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit.

• Spend some time in gratitude to God for making you clean.
• Ask Him to help you believe that you have been made permanently clean, and begin to abide in Him, so that you may bear fruit until the day where we will be in an eternally clean mansion with a housekeeper who doesn’t miss a spot.