Can I come by and see what’s in your house today?
Zacchaeus was a wee little man…
You remember that story? He climbed a tree to see Jesus and then in one amazing moment, Jesus called to him to come down because he wanted to go to Zacchaeus’s house.
I read that today in my daily reading and it reminded me of a lesson I taught young children years ago, although with a simple gospel line. It was titled Your Heart, Christ’s Home.
You and I have many rooms in our home. When you are expecting company you focus on cleaning the rooms you know they will see; your living room, dinning room and probably your bathroom.
But imagine the Lord Jesus coming in for a visit and he says, “I would like to go in that room”.
Wait! That room is not clean. I didn’t take time to clean there because that is my personal bedroom, or office, or entertainment room. Or maybe, we only invite “the other” guests into that room! They don’t really care how cluttered and dusty it is. There are things there we let others see, but not Jesus! Yeah, right!
Could that be true of our heart? We have rooms in our heart with daily habits, personal joys and entertainments that we wouldn’t want others to really see or know about.
But friend, we cannot hide these things from God. He knows what is there and that is why he says, “I want to go into that room”. He wants to be present in every room of our heart and remove the shame of it’s filth.
Maybe it’s time to clean up those areas of our life that we secretly indulge in or are embarrassed by, or ashamed of. Things that we know would be called out by God as areas of sin. I speak to myself here as much as anybody.
It may be time for repentance and cleansing. The Psalmist says;
“Who can understand his errors?
Cleanse me from secret faults.
Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins;
Let them not have dominion over me.
Then I shall be blameless,
And I shall be innocent of great transgression”. Psalms 19:12-13
Jesus Christ as our sin bearer has already paid the price for cleaning but it’s up to us to let His Holy Spirit do the sanctifying work. Jesus told Peter in John 13:10 that he was clean, (because Peter believed Jesus Christ) but needed his feet washed. Salvation cleanses the sinner from sin but sanctification is the daily purifying work of the Spirit of God.
“who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works”. Titus 2:14