Spring Cleaning.

"...For My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples."

(Isaiah 56:7, Matthew 21:13) 

I've been at a lack of contentment lately. There has been lack of satisfaction in my life as a result of not finding my satisfaction in the Lord. 

The devil always likes to hit us in areas that we do not expect, the areas we do not sweep completely clean. It has been no different with me. God has been speaking to me about my discontentment, about my envy and my inner unsuspected idolatry. I feel the great need to have Him clear the temple, because this house of prayer has become cluttered with the burdens and desires of this world. Prayer - the seeking of God's will and desires, has been quite absent.

Covetousness and envy have been the greatest idols of my heart as of late.These are the obstacles that have been indirectly running my happiness and state of mind. They have made me feel many times physically ill and exhausted this week.

This is how I would define idols: they are the things I use to define my righteousness, the things that flirt with and influence my sense of worth and pride. 

The biggest relief I have received out of this struggle against coveting and discontentment has been realizing that they have been affecting my functional trust in Christ. The most important part of the battle against sin is waking up, actually seeing the sin at hand and struggling against it. But this is only half the battle.

We must be ruthless with sin. We must see it and call it out for what it is. Then we must take it to the cross, the only place where it is really destroyed. Taking sin to the cross, does not leave room for self-pity and guilt. Self-pity looks at what a mess my sin has gotten me into, how it has ruined my life; hating oneself, while the sin still holds control. Repentance takes sin to the cross, it consider how this sin has grieved the Father, what this sin has cost Him. It causes us to hate the sin. We see Christ died out of a commitment to our holiness, that He died so that we wouldn't have to sin; Jesus died to bring us a righteousness we could not earn. When we see Christ, sin loses its hold in our lives, we no longer want to hold on to idols. 

I've been slowly working through envy and discontentment. It takes preaching truth to myself, examining my heart, all the while experiencing such brokenness because of this sin, not because it will ruin my life, but because I know it is hurtful and insulting to my heavenly Father. I know this house longs to be cleaned of fleshly filth, and to instead be a warm house to the Spirit of God, full of truth and full of God's desires.

It takes repentance and acting out in faith to tear down the idols of the heart. Cleaning should occur every day. Repentance should happen every day, and it is made possible because of Christ.