Clean Sweep

Dan Howard   -  

The last few months at church we have been shuffling things around. It’s given us a chance to clean and to evaluate what we have and look at what we are becoming as an organization. What are our priorities? What are our needs? Does this bring me joy? Would it make someone else happier?

Summer is here. It’s a time in which we do more cleaning and catching up now that doors and windows can be thrown open. Fresh breezes roll through the house, and the dust is swept away. Cars are washed and taken out to shown, Grills see constant us, and sheds are decluttered

So what does a clean church and a clean house have to do with you?

We to need to take time to take an inventory of our life. We need to clean the dark corners. We need to see what we have hidden under the bed and tucked into the dark corners of the closet. Those places that we think have been hidden from the Holy Spirit we need to expose.

I challenge you to take some time to do that, I will be,  and as we do that together let’s dwell on the 139th Psalm.

139 O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.

Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.

13 For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.[a]
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.

17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with you.

19 Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!
O men of blood, depart from me!
20 They speak against you with malicious intent;
your enemies take your name in vain.[b]
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
22 I hate them with complete hatred;
I count them my enemies.

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts![c]
24 And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting![d]

 

Amen

-Pastor Dan