Avoiding Evil

Part of the day Monday and all day today I spent the majority of my time working on my bedroom. The walls were getting scraped up and dull looking, and the last people who lived in this house had put up some pretty nasty looking wallpaper that just needed to come out. As I began dragging things out of drawers, pulling furniture out of my room and getting ready to paint, I noticed a common theme. Large clumps of dust had developed on shelves, in cabinets, and in drawers. In the dark corners of the room and behind the furniture was a nice place for large amounts of cobwebs to accumulate. Since my room is in the basement of our home, even though it is fully finished, it still collects bugs and lots of them. Under the bed, desk, shelf, TV, dresser, and nightstand, hidden in the darkness, was a huge bug graveyard filled with hundreds upon hundreds of dead bugs. The funny thing is, before I began moving furniture and digging in drawers I never noticed it was this dirty. In fact it looked really clean and nice on the surface, but it was filthy and dirty deep down.

Thinking about it now I believe the condition of my room reflects the condition of the heart of Christians. Over time our heart accumulates a lot of junk and filth that slowly seeps in and hides in the deepest crevice it can find. At first glance we never know it is even there, but if we take the time to search our own heart, what we may find is unclean and impure areas that we never noticed. What dust, cobwebs and bugs have accumulated in your heart?

Acts 28:26-27 “You will listen and listen, yet never understand; and you will look and look, yet never perceive. For this people’s heart has grown callous their ears are hard of hearing and they have shut their eyes…”

Psalm 24:3-4 “Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in His holy place? The one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not set his mind on what is false and who has not sworn deceitfully.”

Matthew 5:8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, because they will see God.”

Knowing that God looks at the heart of man, we must constantly seek to remain pure before him, asking and pleading with God to search us and remove what is impure in us.

Psalm 26:2 “Test me, Lord, and try me; examine my heart and mind.”

Psalm 139:23-24 “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns. See if there is any offensive way in me; lead me in the everlasting way.”

Psalm 51:10 “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”

2 Timothy 2:22 “Flee from youthful passions, and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.”

Is it time for you to do a little cleaning down deep? I believe for me it is. Even though I am finished with my room, I still have a lot of work left to do in my heart. So what do we use to cleanse the heart? With my room I had a vacuum cleaner, dusting materials, paint, and other things to clean out the dirt, but what do we use to clean the heart? The Word of God!

Hebrews 4:12 “For the word of God is living and effective and sharper than any two-edge sword, penetrating as far as to divide soul, spirit, joints, and marrow; it is a judge of the ideas and thoughts of the heart.”

Pressed