Spring Cleaning Time

So, as you know, there is spring cleaning and then there is spring cleaning.  There’s the kind that most of us do that is really just a better, more thorough job than our everyday cleaning. Then there is grandma’s version. You know the type. I have vivid memories of spring cleaning as a kid at my Grandma Flo’s. The memories have left such a mark that I’m certain she did spring cleaning year round. We would scrub the floors by hand (with toothbrushes if necessary), wash every inch of every wall, vacuum in places we didn’t know existed, and take everything off every shelf and carefully dust each item individually. Don’t even get me started on the windows. I don’t remember her having a white glove, but she would definitely check everyone’s work. Few of us ever passed the first inspection. That is spring cleaning! When we were done, the freshness sparkled throughout the house and there was a new sense of comfort and peace in the house.
When was the last time we allowed God to do a spring cleaning in our lives? We so quickly add baggage to our faith that God never intended. We allow the world to creep in and cover the truth of God’s promises with layers of doubt. The fingerprints of our own pride and selfishness can cover even the windows of the “good” works in our lives.
I think it’s a valuable exercise as believers, and especially as parents, to hand God the vacuum and even the toothbrush and ask Him to clean out anything that keeps us from Him. As parents we want our children to have a genuine faith. Training them in the way they should go means our faith should be genuine, fresh, and marked by grace and a sense of unexplainable peace.
1 Corinthians 15 has been a great passage for me recently to get back to the joy of my salvation, and the victory already won by Christ over sin and death.
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures – 1 Corinthians 15:3
Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. – 1 Corinthians 15:58