Day 2:

Cleansing

“These men called together their fellow Levites, and they all purified themselves. Then they began to cleanse the temple of the Lord, just as the king had commanded. … The priests went into the sanctuary of the Temple of the Lord to cleanse it, and they took out to the Temple courtyard all the defiled things they found.” 2 Chronicles 29:15-16

cleansing [klenz] verb

1. to make clean
2.  to remove by or as if by cleaning “to cleanse from the soul.

Thanksliving: Cleansing

Being clean is something that many of us take for granted. Running water and soap make it relatively easy to wash away dirt. It doesn’t take too many days of camping, however, before we have a new appreciation for a hot shower and a dishwasher. A few years ago my son went on a fundraising hike across America to raise money for the burn unit of a local children’s hospital. As he backpacked his way from California to Florida, he often went several days without a shower or being able to wash the few clothes he had. Dirt was a fact of life, and as his mom I was dismayed at what became acceptable standards of “cleanliness” to him.

A clean body can help protect us from disease and discomfort. A clean home makes for a healthy environment for family and friends. Likewise, regularly confessing our sin keeps our hearts clean before God. Jesus is the One who purifies us permanently from our sin by taking that punishment upon Himself. Being thankful for His sacrifice is a wonderful way to celebrate Thanksgiving.

Pray for Thanksliving cleansing.

After the fall of man due to sin, God instituted many rules that the people had to follow to purify themselves from defilement and sin. In today’s verses, King Hezekiah of Judah purges the nation from idolatry and reintroduces the people to true worship. As you can see, this begins with a major cleanup of the people and The Temple of the Lord, as per Old Testament rules. Today please take a moment and give thanks to God for the cleansing He provided for us through the cross and the blood of Christ.

Just as Hezekiah purged the Temple of the Lord from the idols that the people had brought in, we may have to get serious about our temples. In 1 Corintians 6:19, God tells us that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit and that we are not our own. Jesus bought us for a very expensive price — His own life. Keeping that in mind, we may need to throw out some junk to make room for the holiness God desires.

1.  Pray and ask God to show you if there is a habit or pattern of sin in your life that needs to go.
2. Find a verse of scripture that pertains to this struggle and begin praying it into your life.
3. Thank God for how He is already at work cleaning up and redeeming this area of your life.

More Thanksliving: Cleansing

If you’d like to explore this theme further, please read  The Cleansing of My Temple.

Comment

Please leave a comment below in the Speak Your Mind section on what God teaches you today about cleansing.

Previous Links

• Introduction
• Day 1: Light

“cleansing.” Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. 16 Nov. 2014. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cleansing>.

 As a child, the season of Lent often began with a battle royal for me.

You see, my parents always encouraged my sisters and me to give up something for Lent. More often than not, I usually gave up candy. Every week a good portion of my weekly allowance quickly found it’s way from my pocket to the coffers of Krajci’s Drugstore a few blocks from my house. In the small town where I lived, Krajci’s was one of the few places that had a huge selection of five-and ten-cent candy. Bub’s Daddy Bubble Gum, Paydays, Wonka Bottle Caps, Snickers Bars, and cherry Colas were a few of the items I splurged on. Forty days seemed an awfully long time to go without a treat from Krajci’s.

Self-denial

I didn’t totally understand at the time the purpose for giving up something during Lent. I would have been happy to have given up brussel sprouts or tuna noodle casserole, but I understood enough to realize that what I gave up needed to be something that I actually liked.

Today I realize that one of the purposes of self-denial is that it is part of the process of spiritual formation. I need to cooperate with the Holy Spirit so that He continues to transform my life to make me more like Christ.

In that spirit, this year during Lent I am going to work on “giving up” a sin pattern in my life — and hopefully this will be something that continues for the rest of the year too. I think I know just what bad habit I want to be rid of this year: lateness.

Tardiness has been a habit that has plagued me since childhood. It worsened during my teen years (just ask my best friend Pam who drove me to school most mornings). I was always rushing around stressing myself out and anyone else that had the misfortune of being around me. I’ve since made some changes but still have plenty of room for more. I know this won’t be an easy fix for me, but I’m expecting progress!

If you’d like to join me in giving something up for Lent, tell me about it in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from a few fellow bad-habit breakers.

Pray on!

Last week was not a week that I am proud of.

My attitude was weighing me down, becoming progressively worse as the week went on. If I am totally honest about it, I have to admit that I was mired in anger, frustration, and stress and really didn’t want to listen to what God wanted me to do about it.

The result being that by the time I was willing to listen, I was pretty much a mess.

Had I just listened to God from the start, it wouldn’t have been such a painful process to fix things, but my stubbornness got in the way, so I had to do things the hard way. As a result, I spent some time in Psalm 51, which is a panacea for sin.  King David penned this prayer of despair and hope after he made a mess of his relationship with a married woman, Bathsheba.

As I read through his heartfelt plea, I added my own regrets to the Psalm and felt the refreshing words of forgiveness wash over  my soul. I decided to write a prayer of forgiveness based on Psalm 51 to help me truly remember this lesson. I share it with you in the hope that it will encourage another struggling soul. Feel free to share your thoughts and feelings in the comment section. Remember, forgiveness is just a prayer away~

(If you’d like to download a free Bible study on forgiveness, just click on The Sinner for a study by Mary Kane.)

Pray on!

O merciful God,

Once again I come to you humbly, asking for your forgiveness, that You will remember my sins no more.

You love me with a depth of love that is difficult for me to fathom. It is not based on me living up to my part of the bargain, because I can’t do that. It is based on who you are and your unfailing love.

I know my sin all too well. Just when I think I have finally mastered it, it masters me. And I sin against you. From my earliest days, my soul has been marred by sin, yet you never give up on me. You continue to instill Truth deep into my soul and dangle tidbits of Wisdom for me to grasp until I am hooked by the absolute rightness of your way and the futility of mine.

I am sorry. Forgive me.

You scrub my soul with the hyssop of the blood of Jesus, making me whiter than freshly fallen snow. I draw a deep, life-giving breath and offer you my undivided attention, ready to learn from my mistakes, welcoming the joy and light back into my parched soul.

I ask to serve you with a clean heart and a spirit that is determined to cling to you. I need your presence with me and the Holy Spirit to guide my steps. Otherwise, I wander my own paths that lead to destruction and destinations far from you.

A broken spirit and a broken and contrite heart are the incense of my sacrifice to you. Released from guilt, my praises pour forth, and I am set free to proclaim all you are. You take my offering and heal me, one step closer to the person you made me to be.

Amen.

By Jane VanOsdol June 2013

OnlyByPrayer.com

If you would like a nice, printable copy of this prayer, click on this link My Failure, God’s Forgiveness for a pdf.

“I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.” Acts 26:17-18 (NIV)

For out third devotion this week, we are looking at stanza three of the poem:

FAST from apparent darkness; FEAST on the reality of God’s light.

(Click for the entire poem and for Monday and Tuesday’s devotion.)

In this stanza, we have the contrast between darkness and light, which stands for evil and good or Satan and God. As I was meditating on darkness and lightand therefore good and evil, the question popped into my head, “There’s such an obvious difference between good and evil. Why do so many people get drawn into darkness?” But then God sent the thought back to me, “Is it really so obvious to others? Remember this verse in 2 Corinthians 11:14, ‘And no wonder, for Satan masquerades as an angel of light.'”

I had forgotten about that verse. So many times Satan makes sin or darkness look like fun. I can remember many times when I was a child and wanted to do something that my parents would not let me do; I thought they were being overprotective and just didn’t want me to have fun, when in reality they could see something I could not: the inherent danger or darkness in that situation that they wanted to protect me from. As a child, I did not have the wisdom or discernment to see that; as older, wiser parents, they did. Satan often makes sin appealing, so that we will yield to it. Then the next time, it’s easier to say yes to a more egregious sin. Before we know it, we are on a slippery slide to doing all kinds of things we never thought we would do. We can see now how someone can commit an obvious sin, like murder. Probably in most cases, a person who commits a terrible crime has a long history of saying yes to lesser offenses, which lulled their conscience to sleep and set the scene for greater sins.

So in this Holy Week, we can see much darkness involved in Jesus’ crucifixion. The forces of evil thought they had won the battle, but, praise God, they underestimated the power of God, of light, to win over the powers of darkness. The Greek word for light is phos, and some of its meanings include truth and knowledge. God’s light is always the truth, the whole truth, and nothin’ but the truth, as the old saying goes. Another interesting meaning regarding light, is that we should be sharing this light and wisdom with others. Matthew 5:15 tells us that we should not light a candle and hide it under a bushel basket; no, we are to set it out so that it lights up the whole house and everyone can see it. If you doubt the power of little old you shining your light to others, try the experiment of going into a dark room of your home and lighting one candle to see the power that light has to dispel darkness!

Application: Is there a sin you have been allowing to continue in your life because you think it’s not a big deal? Let’s work on rooting out the sin the Holy Spirit is convicting us about before we reap a harvest of pain in our lives or someone else’s. Let’s also share the light we have with other people as God gives us opportunities in His perfect timing.

Prayer: Jesus, thank you for breaking the power of darkness by your death on the cross. May we never take that sacrifice lightly or become oblivious to the sin in our own hearts and lives. Give us the courage and discernment to know when to share that light with others. Amen.

Image courtesy of foto76 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Therefore say, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Although I have cast them far off among the Gentiles, and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet I shall be a little sanctuary for them in the countries where they have gone.”’ Ezekiel 11:16

I stumbled across this verse as I was reading this morning and was really struck by the phrase “yet I shall be a little sanctuary for them in the countries where they have gone.” The Hebrew word for sanctuary also means “sacred place” or “holy place.” God was judging Israel for its sin and had scattered His people among foreigners, yet God still was a sanctuary for them right in the midst of where they were.

Jesus is still doing that very same thing for us today. No matter where we are, through our faith in Jesus, God has planted in us His Holy Spirit who resides in each one of us. Are you a missionary living in a foreign land? God will be your holy place. Are you traveling for work this week? God will be your sanctuary of refreshment. Are you trying to survive in a hostile work environment? God is your familiar refuge. Are you living out your calling in your busy home with little children on your hip or teens coming and going? God is your oasis of peace. Perhaps you’re in your golden years. God is your inspiration for serving others.

No matter where your corner of the world is, remember that God is your sanctuary, your holy place, your home. Nestle your heart in Him and draw from His well of love and security as you serve others today in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Pray on!

Image: dan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I have to admit, at first I felt a bit apprehensive about trying listening prayer. But, I decided to not let my fears stop me from pursing this time with Him and pressed ahead. I don’t know about you, but sometimes it helps me to hear what others are doing when I’m trying out a new spiritual discipline. So with that in mind, this is what I do to practice listening prayer.

4 Steps to Listening Prayer

First of all, I get into a comfortable position. You can sit on the floor, in a comfy chair, kneel, whatever seems to fit the moment. I quiet my mind by following up on a suggestion from Pastor Ron Stohler at my church. He uses a breathing or centering prayer to quiet himself. Very simply, you choose a short verse like Psalm 46:10. You breathe in and as you do this you would say, “Be still and know,” then you exhale and as you do this you say “that I am God.” Do this a few times until you feel quieted and at peace.

Next, I just ask God to tell me what He wants me to hear this day, what’s important for me to know. Then I wait. Sometimes a verse of scripture will pop into my head. Other times a word, like forgiveness or courage. God may reveal a sin that I need to confess. Often a person will come to mind. I pray for insight as to what I need to do.

Journal It

Next I will write down what God has shown me, because I’ve found that I quickly forget if I don’t record it! I purchased a small spiral notebook that I use just for this time.

Finally, I thank God for that time with Him, and that’s it. Listening prayer can be as long or as short as you want it to be. Each day may be different. Sometimes I like to have instrumental music quietly playing in the background or I may light a candle. Do what helps you to connect with God.

Safety Net in Listening Prayer

One thing to keep in mind is to know that God will never reveal anything to you in this quiet time with Him that violates scripture. Use scripture as your safety net as you are practicing these times of silence and solitude. Reject any thoughts that are contrary to scripture and move on.

I pray these suggestions help you. You may have other things that work for you. Please leave a comment and share your insights with us.

Pray on!