A Good Dusting

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usting the furniture is one chore I cannot stand!  In fact, I hate it!  What a depressing and painstaking task it is.  It wouldn’t be so bad if everything little item didn’t have to be picked up, dusted, moved, dusted under, and then put back in place.  Talk about an aerobic workout! I bet I lose at least 10 pounds each time I dust my house.  The depressing thing is that as soon as my house is clean, it will be dusty again in a matter of days.

I have learned, however, that if you don’t stay ahead of it, dust multiplies.  Honestly, if you skip one week, the stuff just doubles or even triples in size.  Pretty soon, there are little dust bunnies (isn’t that a cute name?) living underneath the beds, under the couch, and hiding in every little nook and cranny.  What gets me is that I feel as if I’m fighting a losing battle.  No matter how much I try, I can never totally rid my house of dust.  It just keeps showing up week after week and month after month.

Sin is a lot like dust, only you can’t get rid of it by sweeping it under the rug or by using furniture polish.  If left unchecked, it multiplies, easily doubling or tripling in size and magnitude almost over night.  Isn’t it funny how we won’t tolerate a dusty house, but we will tolerate and even live a life that has the dust of sin all over it?  Do the Scriptures give us any instructions on keeping the dust of sin at bay and maintaining a clean heart?

In 1 John 1:9 the Apostle shares a great truth of scripture.  This verse is often quoted by pastors and most Christians have heard it, memorized it, and used it when telling others about Jesus.  However, we need to take a good long look at this verse and understand exactly what it means and how we can apply it daily to our lives.  John writes, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Take a good look at what John is saying here.  The sentence is a conditional one, meaning that we have to do something before God acts on our behalf.  The first thing we must do is confess our sin.  John wrote this letter in Greek and when we translate what he wrote we get something like this, “if we continue to confess our sins he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and continues to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  Wow, did you catch that?  This is a continual process, just like removing dust.  It has to be done on an ongoing basis.

Although we have been saved, sin continues to be a perpetual problem.  If left unchecked, it robs us of the close relationship God means for us to have with him on a daily basis.  When we sin, we need to confess it right then and not let it pile up.  Confessing our sin is the same as admitting there is dust in our lives that needs to be removed.  If we don’t take care of it, the dust (sin) continues to build up and will coat every aspect of our lives.

But John assures us that Jesus offers to keep us free from sin when we come to him and confess our wrongs.  He comes in, looks under all the furniture, moves all the little things in our lives, dusts them off, wipes them clean, and rearranges them.  When he finishes, everything is put in order and there is no trace of dust and no residue.  Our lives are totally clean.  When we sin again and confess it, Jesus forgives us and sets our house in order again, continually cleaning and removing everything that prevents us from having a wonderful relationship with him.

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raise God that he does this.  All of us, no matter how long we have been a Christian, need to have our lives examined.  We need to open our hearts and let God examine us, to look in every nook and cranny of our lives and to remove the sin that has collected and coated them.  What we need is a thorough cleaning from someone who knows all the places where sin likes to hide!  How about it?  Could you use a good dusting today?