Time for spring cleaning!

It’s almost Spring!  And there is just something about this time of year that makes us want to clean out stuff and freshen up our homes.  But, for now, let’s put aside thoughts of cleaning our house and think more about cleaning out our heart.  We tend to keep lots of things inside our heart that have no business being in there.  Didn’t we forgive that transgression years ago?  Then what is it still doing lurking in the corner?  What about that bitterness?  It looks like it is starting to grow roots!  I see some negative thoughts floating around like dust in the air.  What about that prideful attitude stuffed inside and bursting at the seams?  And how about that spot of anger that needs to be cleansed?  Time to clean up!

Galatians 6:22-23 has just what we need:  “But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.  Against such there is no law.”  Let’s grab some joy and splash it on that hard and crusty attitude and spray a little kindness around for a sweet-smelling aroma.  A little longsuffering here and a little goodness over there mixed in with some faithfulness and self-control creates an atmosphere of pure love.  Ahhhh, feel the warm gentleness breeze as it blows through our heart giving us that wonderful peace.  How refreshing God’s Word is when we apply it to our lives and allow the Holy Spirit to cleanse our hearts.

Another good verse to get us in the right mood is Philippians 4:8 “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy – meditate on these things.”  If we spend our time doing what this verse says, there won’t any room to store those “things” we don’t need .   Cleaning is so much easier when we don’t have a bunch of “stuff” in the way.  So, pack it up and give it to God.  Then we can fill our hearts with lovely things.

Spring cleaning is good but Spiritual cleaning is the best! 

 Needle Little Love

Needle little love.  Catchy name.  One of my friends came up with it.  As you probably have figured out, it’s a play on words - need a little love.  Who doesn’t need love?  I need love and I know that you all do too.  Everyone needs love.  People who say they don’t need love are lying. So, everyone needs love.  Well, isn’t it just a lucky coincidence that God is love?    So, when we say we need love, what we are really needing is God. 

We hear things that we already know.  Jesus loves you.  Yes, we know that.  And I am not going to tell you anything that you don’t already know.  Hopefully you will walk away with a greater sense of how much Jesus loves you.  We all know the “love” chapter - 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

“Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never fails.”  Then verse 13 “And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

I may say that I love someone but when I put my love up against verses 4-8, I can’t honestly say that I have kept all of it.  Sometimes I don’t suffer very long - I’m impatient.  Sometimes I do get envious, sometimes I want recognition, sometimes I provoke an argument, sometimes my ego gets in the way.  Sometimes my love fails.  But I know that God never fails.

I John 4:7-8 tells us specifically that God is love: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  He who does not love does not know God, for God is love”.  And again in 1 John 4:16: “And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.”

Twice in the same chapter John says that God is love.  Not just that God loves us.  Not just that God has love.  But that God is love.   There is a song “Your Love is Extravagant” by Casting Crowns – it has these words: “Your love is extravagant, Your friendship it is intimate.  I find I’m moving to the rhythms of your grace, your fragrance is intoxicating in our secret place. Your love is extravagant.  Spread wide in the arms of Christ is the love that covers sin.  No greater love have I ever known, You considered me a friend.  Capture my heart again.”

That should be our prayer - that God would capture our heart again and again and again - like falling in love for the first time.  God’s love is extravagant.  He spared no expense in showing us His love.  My prayer is that we can also have an extravagant love.  Love is the most precious of all the gifts we have and yet it does not have a monetary value.  We can afford to be extravagant.  Amen to love? Amen!