One of the major projects I tackled as soon as I retired was clearing out over 18 years of accumulated junk from our home. Everything had to be gone through in order to determine if we would keep it or not.
Although this took time, the real work actually was in the disposal of all of the “rejected” items. These first had to be sorted into two piles: Still usable? Or Junk? The “still usable” items were sold on-line, and the “junk” items had to be further sorted into one of the following categories: electronics; hazardous waste; recyclables; or garbage. You can imagine how full the garage soon became!
It doesn’t do any good to simple clear out junk only to store it in the garage, so my next job was to find an appropriate home for each of those piles of junk. I would discover that I could leave the electronics and hazardous waste items at special receptacles of the local dump. The recyclables could be sorted into their proper categories and put on the street on my local garbage day. Finally, the actual “garbage” could also go out with the garbage on our local garbage day, but only after buying “extra garbage” tags for the items that would fit in garbage bags, buying a “permit” for the items with refrigerants in them, and registering all of the oversized items with the city at least two business days prior to pick up.
Whew! What a job! But you can believe me when I say it felt good to be done with all of that garbage! Now I hope I will be able to keep the house junk-free, or in the very least, do another thorough cleaning next year!
In all, it makes me think of another type of “cleaning” that we each should participate in—not once every 18 years, but rather, we should participate in this particular type of cleaning on a continual basis. I am speaking of the cleansing of our thoughts: “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (2 Cor. 10:5 NIV).
Every thought needs to pass through the filter of “appropriate” versus “inappropriate”. Why? Because the battlefield for our souls is in the mind: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Eph. 6:12 NIV); because, “The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.” (Rom. 8:6 NIV)!
Just like cleaning out my basement left me with a large pile of stuff to be done away with, when we cleanse our thoughts we are also left with a pretty big pile of junk. The Bible defines this junk as “acts of the flesh”, and describes it as:“…sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.” (Gal. 5:19-21 NIV). In the same way I needed to not just clear out my house, but I also needed to get rid of the junk, we need to also get rid of these “acts of the flesh”. The good news is, we don’t need to work at further sorting and bagging up our spiritual junk. All we need to do is bring it under the blood of Jesus. Consider the following passage fromHebrews 9:
“For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with human hands that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. Otherwise Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.” (Heb. 9:24-26 NIV)
The good news, friends, is this: We can plead the merits of Jesus’ blood over our “heart junk”, and it will be taken care of, forever! Jesus has washed it away! No more guilt, no more shame, no more condemnation: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death…And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” (Rom. 8:1,3-4 NIV)!
Unfortunately, just because my house is clean doesn’t mean I can’t go out and accumulate more junk. In the same way, we are told that the devil: “…prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8b NIV). Join us next Saturday for some ideas at how to keep the junk from coming back in: “The Junk, Part 2: Keeping the Junk at Bay”!
In His love,
Lyn
Lynona Gordon Chaffart, Speech-Language Pathologist, mother of two, Author — “Aboard God’s Train — A Journey With God Through the Valley of Cancer”, Author and Moderator for The Nugget, a tri-weekly internet newsletter, andScriptural Nuggets, a website devoted to Christian devotionals and inspirational poems, withAnswers2Prayer Ministries. Follow Lyn on Twitter @lynchaffart.
(To access the entire “The Junk” mini-series, please click here.)