Clean Your Closet

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aturday morning, 7:00 a.m.  While most of the teenagers in town were still snoozing in their beds, the teenagers at my house, namely my brother and I, were already awake and working.  You see, Saturday’s were house-cleaning days and my mom loved to get an early start.  Actually, an early start for her was between 5:30 and 6:00 a.m. but she graciously let the rest of us sleep until 7:00.  However, as the clock was striking the hour, the lights came on in our room; we were rousted from a deep sleep, rolled out of bed, and given our assigned duties.

My brother and I were responsible for our room.  We were to change our sheets, pick up our clothes, straighten our desk, and tidy up the place.  I was in charge of running the vacuum cleaner while Kevin’s responsibility was to dust.  When we finished with our room, we were to apply our skills to the remaining rooms of the house.  Vacuuming the entire house was my responsibility and, as you’ve probably guessed by now, Kevin’s was to dust the furniture.  Other duties included taking out the trash, and putting up the clothes mom had folded that morning or the night before.

I’ll have to admit that my heart wasn’t always in my work.  Vacuuming the carpet wasn’t on my top-ten list of things I loved to do.  So sometimes, I’d vacuum just the visible areas of the room, neglecting to move a chair, pick up a pair of shoes, or run the vacuum underneath a bed or sofa.  Why I thought I could get away with this was beyond me.  Whenever we finished our assigned duties, mom would usually inspect.  That’s when my ineptitude at running a vacuum cleaner came into full light.  She looked underneath the beds, behind chairs, and around all the corners.  She wanted to make absolutely sure I had removed all the dust from the rooms, not just where it was visible.

Little did I know it then but mom was practicing a wonderful biblical principal.  In Exodus 12:19-20, God gives Moses instructions on how to clean a house.  The occasion for these instructions was the Passover as God prepared Israel to leave Egypt and 400 years of bondage behind.  God’s instructions were clear, “For seven days no yeast is to be found in your houses. And whoever eats anything with yeast in it must be cut off from the community of Israel, whether he is an alien or native-born.  Eat nothing made with yeast. Wherever you live, you must eat unleavened bread."

The people were to prepare themselves for this great event by removing every speck of yeast from their homes.  It was to be removed from every container, from every cupboard, and from every nook and cranny of the dwelling.  There was to be no yeast found anywhere in the house for seven days.  The house was to be totally clean so that the people would be in keeping with God’s commands and ready as He led them out of bondage.

You may be asking, “Well what does this have to do with me today?”  In the Old Testament, yeast represents sin.  When God saves us—that is when the blood of Jesus is applied to our lives—He sees the blood and passes over us.  We are no longer under His judgment because we have accepted His wonderful gift of salvation through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.  Now we know that wherever Christ dwells sin does not and the removal of the yeast from the house symbolized that God’s salvation removed all sin from the life of the believer.  He was clean before God and by applying the blood of the sacrifice, Jesus; he was no longer in bondage to sin but was liberated by God.

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ow long has it been since you cleaned house?  How long has it been since you really looked in every nook and cranny of your life to make sure it was completely clean and free from any hidden sin?  God wants us to have a clean house and He has made a way for our houses to be cleaned.  Our responsibility, however, is to accept the gift of His son, Jesus Christ, by putting our faith in him and believing he died for our sins, was raised from the dead, and reigns in heaven with God right now.  How dusty is your life today?  Isn’t it time you cleaned house?