Housekeeping
The advent of spring generally brings with it a list of home projects to spruce up the interiors and exteriors of our homes. For some of us, there is great satisfaction in working to replace the dinge of winter with order, color, and freshness. Others of us truly enjoy the benefits, but prefer to farm out the work. I would place the chore of spring-cleaning at the top of that list. I love a clean house and truly admire those who are really good at it, but housekeeping is honestly one of my least favorite things to do. So, I need strong motivation to dive into that much labor; it would have to be for the purpose of friends and family coming to visit for several days. Afterall, what good is having your home looking like a showcase, if there’s no one to show it to?
Years ago, I was introduced to a spiritually powerful woman named Aiko Hormann. She taught on many fascinating subjects, but one of the most impacting was spiritual housekeeping. It is grounded in the truth that our bodies are God’s dwelling place through the Holy Spirit. It stands to reason that the Lord would like clean living quarters, therefore we become the housekeepers with the following duties:
- Confessing our sin in repentance (a heart-felt desire not to repeat our wrongs).
- Asking for forgiveness from those we’ve wronged and forgiving those who have wronged us.
- Working on our wounds with God to receive His healing and freedom.
As labor-intensive as physically cleaning my home is, this spiritual cleaning is actually harder, requiring even greater motivation not to give up when the work becomes especially painful.
The reason to tackle spiritual housekeeping comes from Leviticus 11:44b where God says to the Israelites, “Be holy as I am Holy.” God is talking about a state of being that provides relationship with Him. Since it can be hard to identify how to “be,” God clarifies in Leviticus 22:32, “I am the God Who made you holy.” So, He is the One Who does the work; precisely what Jesus did to wipe away our sins through His death. Our part is having the faith to receive His sacrifice, then to maintain our holiness through ongoing attention to housekeeping.
Any distaste we have for spiritual housecleaning speaks to how little we understand Jesus’ love, sacrifice, and desire for intimacy with us. We must ask ourselves what is more important to us than He. Have we allowed the love of “things” and cares of the world to side-track us? Do we understand the depth of His suffering, specifically that His flesh was ripped from His body, huge spikes were driven through His hands and feet, followed by being left to suffocate as a consequence of hanging on a cross? While horrific, probably the most painful aspect for Jesus was the disconnection from His Father caused by carrying the weight of all the world’s sin. God’s holiness and the vileness of sin cannot co-exist.
As inconceivable as it seems, the Father and Son agreed to Jesus’ fate before time began. The love of God prompted the creation of man as the object of His love. Love determined that God gave man the choice to love His Creator in return or reject Him. Because God knew in advance that man would make bad choices, love also provided Jesus as the sinless sacrifice for man’s redemption. Isaiah 53:5 states, “But he was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.”
It’s been a long winter, and I am ready to embrace spring, even if that means hunkering down for some tough spiritual scrubbing. Because of the work involved, housekeeping is still not on my “favorites” list. That’s why I’m very grateful that God’s grace does not put me to the “white glove” test. At the same time, I’m really looking forward to having a clean house where the Lord can actually enjoy His stay.