The Reminder
Volume XXXVII, #16: Spring Cleaning
Spring Cleaning By: Rick Lanning
It’s that time of year again. After a long winter it is now the beginning of spring and time to clear out and clean up all the dirty things around the house. While you’re at it, let me suggest you also clean up any hidden skeletons in your closet.
Maybe I should ask, ‘Do you have any skeletons in your closet?’ If someone has a skeleton it means they have a dark, shameful secret in their past that they hope to remain secret. Perhaps it is a secret sin that they are even now engaged in. We can think of such shameful things as a past abortion, an adulterous affair, an addiction to some drug, pornography or gambling habit.
Are you carrying around a “secret sin?” If so, know this well, David once tried to cover up a skeleton in his closet but finally did a thorough spring cleaning and then wrote, “Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults” (Psalm 19:12). Moses wrote of his spring cleaning, “You have set our iniquities before You, Our secret sins in the light of Your countenance” (Psalm 90:8).
If you are terrified that your “secret sins” will come to light and expose you as a horrible sinner, then you need this message. I am not suggesting that your sins must be confessed before all men in order to find forgiveness. But if these skeletons are of a public nature, it might be the wise thing to come clean and put that dark past behind you. “Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed” (James 5:16).
For example, Paul confessed his sin of the murder and imprisonment of God’s people, admitting he was “the chief of sinners” (I Tim. 1:15). The Corinthians had been fornicators, drunkards (drug addicts), homosexuals and other sinful things but confessed and put that life behind them (I Cor 6:9-11).
On the other hand, your skeletons might be of a private nature. In that case, you need to hear John’s advice: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (I Jn. 1:9). Open your closet doors and let God do a thorough spring cleaning.
Living with fear of your past is no way to go through life. The Lord has not given us a spirit of fear (2 Tim 1:7). Or, as John put it, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear” (I Jn 4:18). Get rid of all those secret sins that hold you back from living as a free man in Christ! Get rid of those skeletons in your closet! “For God will bring every work into judgment, Including every secret thing, Whether good or evil” (Eccl. 12:14).
- 20170416_Reminder_xxxvii_16.pdf (60.73 kB)
