Resources/Articles
Clean Out and Rearrange
Create in me a clean heart,
O God;
and renew a right spirit within me.
Psalm 51:10
Winter is here, and spring will not be too far away. It is not often people consider cleaning out and rearranging things until spring. The idea of cleaning out starts in the winter time when people say, “I need to clean out my cabinets, closet, garage, etc.” We especially think about this when we open the pantry door and something falls out. Having a Corningware dish, can of beans, or Tupperware bowl fall on your head is not a very good way to start the day.
We tell ourselves what we need to do is get organized. It’s time to coordinate, classify, arrange, or sort through our cabinets. This may mean throwing some things away or giving them to someone else who would use it more often than we would.
Organizing our lives is not a matter of balancing things as much as it is prioritizing things. In order to prioritize, it is possible we need to repent. Repent of what we have allowed to accumulate and rule our lives instead of God. The world tempts us with a thought, word, or action, ad we let it stay in our hearts and build. It becomes to be so much a part of who we are, and we never think to clean it out. We keep it. While we keep it, it creates a barrier between what we should be and who we have become. Too much work does it. Too much TV does it. Too much anger and frustration do it. Too much complaining does it. Definitely too much sin of any kind does it.
When wrong, sinful ideas flood our heads, we need to clean them out. The Pharisees had overstuffed their heads with hypocrisy. They looked good, but inwardly were rotten and ugly. Jesus rebuked them saying, “Cleanse first the inside of the cup and platter” (Matthew 23:26). Heads filled with attitudes like the Pharisees need removal, rearrangement, and prioritizing. We need to seek God for His help to pitch out gossip, faultfinding, criticism, indifference, haughty spirits, bitterness, and malice, because such a mind is of the flesh and is “enmity against God” (Romans 8:7).
Once our hearts are cleared of the sin which has overwhelmed us, rearranging it with the right priority helps us see what is most important - God. Jesus said it this way: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). We will see God much better in live if our hearts are cleansed from everything which has caused us to see ourselves and not Him. A pure heart opens the way to the path leading us to God’s good pleasure (Philippians 2:13). It removes the desire we might have to be hypocritical and focuses upon the single devotion to God. Seeing what God has in His mind for us is the true blessing of life (1 Timothy 4:8). Godliness instead of godlessness places our hearts where life’s responsibilities are put in order and completed. With the strength, courage, and wisdom provided by God to a pure heart, we see and can fulfill all man was designed by God to accomplish.
We need to clear our minds through a transformation to what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God (Romans 12:2). Every day would mean more if we had an organized, sorted, and well-arranged “mind of the Spirit,” which is “life and peace” (Romans 8:6). Let the word of God with its active power open up the door to what is in your mind (Hebrews 4:12-13). Clear your head of what crowds God out. Arrange in your mind the things that are lovely, pure, honorable, true, just, and of good report (Philippians 4:8). That way the next time you open your mouth, you will not be embarrassed by what falls out (Ephesians 4:29). This way the next step you take will not be in the path of the wicked, but among the company of the wise. Let God’s thoughts be your thoughts.
