God gives us the opportunity by His grace to draw near to Him with a heart that is free from trash! Let’s be diligent to take out the trash today!
If you walk through our kitchen, you’ll find a container lined with a trash-bag. Obviously, that’s where we put our trash. Coffee grounds, empty bottles, egg shells, and sundry other used items go into the container.
Here’s the problem. If you leave garbage in the kitchen and never empty the container, the trash will eventually draw all sorts of unwanted things and odors in the house. That’s why we’re diligent to take out the trash on a regular basis.
It’s only a few steps outside the back deck to place the garbage from the kitchen to the bin that we take to the street, not a long walk, but it seems like such a hassle to carry the garbage from the kitchen to street-bin. The greater hassle would be to leave it and let it grow!
In our relationship with God, we have to be even more diligent to deal with the sin in our lives. Like taking out the trash, we need to remove the sin in our lives that is all too happy to accumulate in our soul.
When Jesus talked about sin, He used images that were shocking.
“If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you… if your right hand causes you to sin, cut if off and cast it from you.” (Matthew 5:28, 29)
Jesus calls us to deal ruthlessly with sin as followers of Jesus. When God’s Word calls us out on sin, then we must deal with it. We can’t be content about the status quo where our sin is concerned. We need to take out the trash immediately!
Taking out the trash of our sin must be a “right now” thing for us. It means that we confess it immediately, turn away from it persistently, and live in the grace that God provides through Jesus.
Listen to James helping us take out the trash today:
“Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.” (James 4:7-10)
So, let’s take out the trash!
Submit to God.
Don’t fight God about your sin. Submission to God means that we abandon all deflection about why we’ve been living in a way that does not honor Him. Acknowledge that He is right and you are wrong. Confess that what the Bible says is true, and how you’ve been living is false.
Cleanse your hands.
When we confess our sins, God is faithful to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Lament, mourn, and weep.
Repentance is turning away from sin and pursuing intimacy with God. It involves a deep sorrow, a broken heart, over our sin. We might say, “I don’t feel sorrow for my sin.” If that’s the case, then ask God to break our hearts, to make our sin distasteful to our soul. Make the commitment to mourn our sin and turn away from it.
God gives us the opportunity by His grace to draw near to Him with a heart that is free from trash! Let’s be diligent to take out the trash today!
