Don't you love it when spring time comes along and everything is fresh and new? People often do deep cleaning and organization of their homes when the season comes. My mother is a little different. Spring cleaning would occur in December. She always says, "You don't start the new year with dirt and a mess!" So, every year, we would deep clean the house, rearrange furniture and get rid of things we didn't need and donate it to charity. It was a tradition. A few years ago I decided to take my childhood tradition and take it to another level: spiritual house cleaning. As we say goodbye to one year and enter in to another, let's make an effort to go it with a fresh start and a clean house.
Imagine this…
It is garbage day and you forgot to take the trash out to
the curb. Because of your busy schedule,
you haven’t been able to put the trash out for quite some time and now you hear
on the news that the sanitation department is on strike. You panic because you already have a lot of
trash built up and you have no idea when the next pick up will be. Two things happen:
1. Your
home smells foul and is dirty because of all of the trash
2. You
have no room in the house for the new furniture being delivered because the
house is a mess
Of course, this example is a little extreme (hoping no
one can relate to this) but it helps to explain the purpose of spiritual
cleaning. Many of us go through our busy
lives fitting God in when we have time instead of making time for God. As time goes by, we are busier and more
detached spiritually. We become used to
the filth around us and become more exposed to the enemy’s tactics. The results, similar to my example above, are
two-fold:
1. We
become irritated and irritating. Our relationships suffer because instead of
the sweet aromatic personality, we give off a stench of bitter garbage.
2. Our spiritual
house is so cluttered with junk, we have no room for the blessings God has for
us. Often times we can’t even recognize a blessing
when it is coming our way because our focus is on the wrong thing.
Spring cleaning - [spring klee-ning]
noun: the activity of giving a place a complete cleaning
We can polish our silver and organize our pantry but the spiritual
cleaning goes deeper. Sometimes we have
things in our homes that leave us open to spiritual attacks. Here is a list of few things that you would
want to get rid of during your cleaning:
- Ouija board and other items associated with witchcraft (even if you think it’s just for fun)
- Things associated with past sins (there is no reason to keep the bong as a souvenir)
- Art with demonic influence, such as, skulls, snakes death, etc.
- Mementos from past inappropriate relationships (that bracelet from the person you were having an affair with has to go)
- Pornography
If you have any of these items on my sample list, now is
the time to part ways with them. If you
want to go in to the new year prepared for what God has planned for you, it
starts with a spiritually clean house. Once you have gone through and thrown away what doesn't belong, that's when the prayer begins. Pray for forgiveness. Pray for a spiritually clean home. Pray that whatever spirits that were attached to those things are gone from your home and God's protection prevails.
The bible says in Hosea:
My
people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Hosea 4:6 (ESV)
Now that you have some knowledge, what will you do with
it? In my last post for 2014, I
encourage you to start the new year off with less junk, clutter and filth,
physically and spiritually.
If you want
more information and details on how to spiritually cleans your home, email me
directly at info@mendingmaria.com.
Have a blessed 2015!
Mending Maria