As I look in the empty rooms I’m reminded of Jesus’ teaching about the
evil spirit who was evicted from a man’s heart. When the evil spirit was
shopping around for a new residence he discovered that his previous abode was
still unoccupied, so he and seven of his evil buddies reclaimed the cleaned up residence.
(Luke 11:24-26)
It just dawned on me that I feel like I’m in constant clean-up mode when
it comes to my heart. I focus on wanting a pure heart, swept clean and put in
order…rather than on a comfortable place for the Spirit to reside.
1 comment:
Gail;
-----What makes life so complicated, anyway? We are made new, yet we still sin. We want to do right and wind up doing wrong. In some situations there is no way to do right without also causing some wrong. And that is by no fault of anyone other than ourselves, because we create those situations by our own carelessness like a weak chess opening. No wonder salvation can not be had by works. However, “But I say to you, ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven…And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.’” (Mat 5:44-45, 47-48)
-----We do not regard enough the differences and interdependencies between the general and the particular. We must have clean air. But the EPA is measuring pollutants in parts per billion. That’s like obsessing over a Tic-Tac dropped on the beach. The general principle of keeping the beach clean is important enough to pick up the Tic-Tac when you’ve noticed it dropping, but the damage it will do the beach is far less than the cost of searching for it when you notice that dropped somewhere. The perfection is not in the spotless beach because the beach won’t be spotless. The perfection is in the diligent application of the principle to each particular.
-----So, we’ve swept our house clean. That’s a particular. Now we’ve gone off to do some other particular and left it empty. That makes happy demons. But if our having been made new swept the house, it is filled with that generality of newness, that is, with principles, to state it in other than gobbleize, filled with the Word of God, particularly stated. It’s no great horror that we still sin after the house has been swept, for the broom was kept and sweeping has become a habit.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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