Cleansing

Words are jostling around in my mind all vying for attention, reflection, definition. Passion, worship, spiritual, sin, holiness, commitment. All words God is teaching me about and challenging me on. Each word could be focused on exclusively and developed in my life. Yet I'm learning they are interwoven, each effected by the other.

How does a person, a church, become spiritually passionate? How do we become committed to holiness? When does worship become a lifestyle? How do we get past the form of spirituality and to the heart of spirituality?

I believe the crux of the issue is sin. I am not merciless with sin. I, and I believe many others in the church, let sin creep in unchecked. I confess I'm not consistent with confessing and dealing swiftly and brutally with sin. I wouldn't knowingly allow cancer to go unchecked in my body. Sin is just as surely a death sentence in my life.

I don't want to live at the mercy of sin anymore. I've learned it has no mercy. It's goal is my destruction. God's glory and holiness should reign in my life and all that it brings, not the putrid stench of death. If I haven't washed my heart in Jesus blood, cleaning the stains of sin from my heart, when I walk into his presence to worship, pray, commune the stench of death rises to meet him instead of the sweet perfume of Jesus. What an assault to his gift of grace.

Whenever I ask myself why does God seem silent, why don't I have joy like I did or should, why is the bible dry, why am I at odds with others, why, why, why... I know sin is the culprit. When I hear other people ask those questions, or see a lack of fruit and passion I know sin's at the root of it. When I see a church struggling to connect with each other and the community, lacking zeal, disconnected in worship I know sin is lurking.

The Holy Spirit is hindered in his work of transforming us into holy people when sin is left undelt with in our lives. Only when we begin at the beginning, washing our hearts for the first or the five hundredth time, can passion ignite, worship flow freely, healing begin. Oh, come and clean us Jesus. May our goal be your glory and the means be our holiness.