Hi, this is Joni Eareckson Tada getting ready for spring cleaning!
Welcome to Joni and Friends and bless you for taking time out of your busy schedule to join me – I love it when we can connect together like this to share a couple of thoughts that’ll encourage your heart. Because we're coming up on the time when you can – don’t you love this -- throw open the windows, air out your house. You're probably itching to get under the beds and couches, clean out your closets... my sister Kathy was out very recently to visit me and, oh boy, did we do some heavy duty cleaning around my house. I got back into the darkest recesses of the closet shelves above my clothes, and we must have put together 5 bags of old clothes, scarves and jackets for the Goodwill; stuff I forgot I even had! But isn’t that what happens when you spring clean – I mean, you always find the most interesting stuff... shoes, sweaters that you thought you lost long ago, only to discover them stuffed way back in the recesses of a drawer.
Spring cleaning gives you a good feeling – and I hope you feel just as good about spring cleaning your heart, because this may be just the right time of year to do some deep cleaning in your life. And who knows? As you dig deep, you just may discover some things stuffed way in the back of your soul that haven’t seen the light of day in ages. And I tell you what… nobody's more interested in deep cleaning your life than the Lord Jesus.
But you may find it hard to let Him do a good scrubbing on your soul; it’s not easy when you invite him into those dark places in your heart and ask him to clean it out. Sure, we'll invite Him to do a little light cleaning; just a little dusting of things; a quick wipe over our conscience. We may even ask him to do a few minor repairs, odds and ends that need to be seen to.
But the Lord is doing much more than you anticipated. He’s not the type to take a light dust cloth to your heart, just doing a bit of polishing here and there on your character... No. Jesus is into the deep recesses, knocking out walls and yanking up the floor boards. He's ripping out the cross beams and tearing down the studs. What little wall board you had around your heart, friend the Lord is demolishing.
“Wait a minute,” you think. "Jesus, you're going a little too far here. I mean I expected you to fix stuff, you know, stuff that needed fixing. But I kind of like the way things were in this area of my life... I didn't ask you to rip through that wall in my conscience; I like the way that stuff was covered up... and I beg to disagree with you, Jesus, but this new addition you put up over here doesn't quite fit into the style of the way I do things."
Hmmm. Little do we realize that God is simply doing what He said He would do. Much more than spring cleaning, He's making you and me into a new creation. Rooting out bitterness and replacing it with joy... dumping old habits and helping you build new ones... clearing away all the debris that's been lying around in the backyard of your soul and planting the fruit of the Spirit. God is building a place in you for His Spirit to live and He will not settle for anything less than what He believes is best. So friend, today, stop and take inventory of what needs to... well, not just be deep‑cleaned... but what needs to be remodeled in your life. And then give God not just a little sponge and a few drops of Lysol... no, not just a light dusting with Pledge… give Him the hammer, give Him the nails, give him the jackhammer and let Him go to work in your heart. He's one Master Builder that friend you can trust.
And once again let me remind you of our website. Come by and visit us at any time – its joniandfriends.org.
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JONI AND FRIENDS
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Agoura Hills, CA 91376
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