Spiritual Housecleaning

Dear Friends,

It was early one Monday morning. I was writing an Amen Corner when I heard a muffled explosion come from somewhere within my house. Odd. Not like anything I'd heard before. This was back in the days when I didn’t have a cat and so that ruled out feline terrorist activity. A cursory security check of the interior of my house revealed nothing. But later on when I went into my pantry, it looked like a scene from the old Ghostbusters movie. Sticky black and brown tendrils of slime dripped from the ceiling. The gross and gooey ectoplasm-like substance had splattered on canned goods and was running off shelves. But before I could call an exorcist, I discovered what happened.

I found this can on a back shelf with its pull-tab lid blown open. (See Evidence Photo)

The label said DOLE PINEAPPLE CHUNKS and what remained inside were gooey black globs of what had once been pineapple. During the forensic investigation with a magnifying glass, pinholes were found in the bottom of the can. Apparently, the highly acidic fruit dissolved the lining of the can and created tiny holes that allowed airborne bacteria to enter. This caused the fruit to decompose which increased the internal pressure and Bam! The expiration date on the can was six years ago. Looked like it was time to clean out my pantry.

As I cleaned up the black gooey ooze, I remembered a book I'd read years ago. Author Frank Peretti, who has been described as a Christian “Stephen King” wrote an award-winning novel called The Oath. The story focuses on a small mining town where many of the townspeople are suffering gruesome deaths. Their bodies are found partially decomposed and covered with a black oozing slime. 

The reader discovers the black ooze is their sin. It starts with a minor blemish – a darkened area of skin over the heart. If ignored, sin becomes a black oozing sore. If the sins remain unconfessed, the black slime begins to grow and takes over their soul. Their once happy lives turn dark and evil and eventually their body decomposes from the inside out. The pressure of the unconfessed sin continues to build up and Bam! The person explodes and there’s gross sticky black ooze all over the place. The Oath is not a book for the faint-hearted or one that you’d want to read during dinner.

That morning as I was scrubbing black ooze and cleaning out my pantry while thinking about the Peretti book, I had the impression that God was telling me I need to clean out my own life. Did I still have unconfessed sins that were well beyond their “freshness dates”? I didn’t want what happened to the sinners in the Frank Peretti book to happen to me. I didn’t want to be shopping at Costco someday and...Bam!  “Attention Costco maintenance. Clean up black ooze on aisle twenty three.”

Scripture tells us that God’s grace covers all of a believer’s sin through the atonement of Jesus on the cross. So why do we need to continue to confess? Because we continue to sin! And when we confess and repent of those sins, we are taking the steps to leave behind the daily sinful thoughts, words and deeds, and we are becoming “sanctified” (meaning that we are spiritually maturing in Christ.) 

Here’s how it works. Once saved, we begin the process of sanctification where we are growing spiritually and are learning how to live and love like Jesus. But any continued sin clogs that process. In fact, we find that God even turns away from us when we continue in our unrepentant sins. “If I had not confessed the sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.” Psalm 66:18 NLT The literal translation for the word “sin” in this verse is “futile sinful pursuits.” 

We sin daily in thought, word and deed but if we pursue sin and look favorably or indifferently upon the sins we commit, God stops listening to our prayers. And Isaiah tells us that God hides Himself from those who are in sin and He will not hear you. Isaiah 59:2 And then we cry, “God doesn’t answer my prayers!” But whenever we have unconfessed and unrepentant sin in our lives, we have clogged up our lines of communication with Him. We unclog those lines when we confess and say, “Lord, I messed up again, here’s what I did...” And God’s immediate response is, “You are forgiven and cleansed from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9

Are there things you do that you know are sinful and you do anyway because they are so satisfying? But are they really worth doing if God turns a deaf ear to your prayers? Like I realized, when I saw the black ooze, do you also have some unconfessed sins that are beyond their freshness dates? If so, consider taking some time this week to do some spiritual housecleaning!  Amen?