Before And After

Tammy, from Tammy's Times, inspired this post a few days ago when she blogged about cleaning out her cabinets. Then looking back at my Kitchen Survey post it sort of all came together to this....Matthew 23:25-28, "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them many be clean also. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness."


On the Kitchen Survey post, several of you told me how nice my kitchen looked. But all you saw was the outside. What you didn't see was the hidden mess within my cabinets. But I knew it was there and I knew I needed to clean them out. So today I spent the better part of the day cleaning out cabinets among other household chores that have been neglected lately.


And just like my cabinets, there are things in all of our hearts that no one sees. We go to church and everyone looks at us as though we're this great Christian, and we let them believe that without ever confessing our faults one to another. But deep within ourselves, we know the hidden secrets. The dirty spots. The cluttered messes of sin that have crept in without anyone knowing.


We keep the doors to our heart closed so that no one can see what we really are. What would they think of me if__________________(you fill in the blank.)



But there is a way to clean these sins from our lives. Proverbs 28:13 says, "He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy." WOE! WAIT A MINUTE! Forsaketh? Every Christian knows well what confession is, but forsaketh? Let's see......


I looked up the word forsake in the Thesaurus and here are some words that would help us to understand its meaning: abandon, cast off, chuck(I like that one), desert, disclaim, disown, drift away, forgo, give up, kiss goodbye*, leave, leave flat*, quit, relinquish, renounce, repudiate, resign, set aside, spurn, surrender. Need I say more on "forsake?"
The last part of that verse says that when we confess and forsake our sins, we will have mercy. God is full of mercy. I'm so glad of that!
We should all confess and forsake our sins. It is only then that the mercy of God cleanses the hidden places of our heart.

Search me, O God,

and know my heart today;

Try me, O Saviour,

know my thoughts, I pray

See if there be

some wicked way in me:

Cleanse me from every sin,

and set me free.

~J.Edwinn Orr and Maori Melody