Clean It Up

Several years ago my sister and brother-in-law moved into an old Victorian home that was in rough shape and needed renovation. The day we helped move them in, I remember how old and worn out everything looked. They didn’t have a lot of money to do a complete remodel, but I’ll never forget coming into their home and looking around just a month or two after they moved in. It looked fabulous. I said, “What did you do?""We just cleaned everything up really well.” And that’s all they did. They took off all of the brass fixtures on their walls, doors, and ceilings, and cleaned them thoroughly and polished them until they shined like new. Every door had beautiful sparkling crystal door handles with brass backing. The light switches were brass and crystal. The light fixtures (mostly old chandeliers) glistened. And the walls looked like they had been freshly painted.I asked them if they had painted the whole house. But they hadn’t. They had simply washed all the walls thoroughly and cleaned up all the cabinets and fixtures, and the old house came alive.Sometimes that’s all it takes is to get the grit and grime out of the way and to let the beauty of what’s beneath to shine through.There is so much being said in Christianity of late about authenticity and honesty. And I know, in times past, some church circles were known for mask-wearing when at church and some lives were more about pretense than genuine walks of faith. But simply being open and honest, authentic or real, however you want to put it, is for a much more important and greater goal. Authenticity for the sake of authenticity does nothing. That’s like admitting something is dirty but doing nothing to clean it up. The reason we are to be real is so that we can take the steps of growth we need and to also gain support and accountability from one another to help us become more like Christ. The goal of authenticity is holiness, a nearly forgotten concept in Christianity today. But as followers of Jesus, we have not been called to be real. We’ve been called to be holy. We are to be real, so that we can grow in holiness and purity, to admit that there is dirt in our lives so that we can get to work at eliminating it and allow the light of Jesus and the presence of the Holy Spirit to shine through.When I walked through my sister and brother-in-law’s house that second time, it was as though they brought honor to the original builder. But all they did was clean it up. They got rid of the dirt, grime and corrosion, and the house sparkled, glorifying the people who designed and built it.And that’s why Jesus came and why the Father sent him. Our lives were wrecked by the corrosive elements of this world and the dirt and grime of our sin. Jesus came to deliver us, and to clean us up, restoring us to himself and to be who we were created to be. Receiving Jesus in faith does that, but the process of sanctification is partly up to us. We have some scouring and polishing to do in our daily lives so that the presence of Jesus comes through and our Maker receives his rightful honor and glory.“Because we have these promises, dear friends, let us cleanse ourselves from everything that can defile our body or spirit. And let us work toward complete holiness because we fear God” (2 Corinthians 7:1 NLT).