Ever see those reality shows that highlight a run down house or failing restaurant and the contractor comes in and saves the day by cleaning out the clutter, the old worn out things, and renews the property so completely that is is hardly recognizable to everyone that knew it?
When we are dead to sin we live in a house where clutter fills our time there. The foundation is set on shifting sand. The timbers are rotten, the plumbing leaks. No matter how hard we try, all our home improvement projects come out less than we dreamed they would be. It can be a dark and lonely house...a house we are trapped in with no hope of ever paying off the burdensome mortgage. In fact, that house will be condemned and we can do nothing to change that. The notice will be nailed on the door of our shack.
Then, when we come to realize our need for Christ and we accept His sacrifice for our lives and trust Him, something amazing happens. The doorbell of our house rings. The reality show 'This is Your Salvation' shows up to renew your home and bring it up to God's standards, preparing it for useful service and preventing the notice of 'condemned' that would have been nailed to the door.
But when the Holy Spirit comes in with His toolbag to begin work, we have concerns. He says that this will be hard and a bit painful. Sometimes the projects will hurt and will seem like they are taking forever to complete. We did not expect that. We begin to question the project a bit. So, we walk through the house and come to the basement. He shows us the new timbers set on a solid bedrock foundation. "When did you do that?", we ask? He says that it happened the minute you signed the contract with Christ to begin the work in your life and that this is just the beginning! You are amazed and for the first time you have reason to hope! You envision a new house, one that is warm, inviting, clean and is used for all the right things.
Then you walk through the house a bit more and come to a room that is very messy. You have been hoarding bad habits and foolish things in there. You close the door, promising that you will neaten this up before He can work in there. The Spirit of God pleads to let Him help and together you can bag all the old stuff and toss it out but you want to do it yourself. He checks His list and suggests another improvement. "How about we tear this wall out and open up this room? It will be brighter and more useful". But you want to keep that wall. It has been built stud by stud by stubborness. It was plastered with a coating of pride and painted to look nice so it hides what it is made from. We feel safe behind that wall. It is the mask our house wears.
Walls hide things and hide us.
So God's contractor suggests we start small and organize that closet over there, pointing to a shut and looked door. Oh no....not that closet. There are things in there that I do not want God to see. Dark things. Selfish things. Dead things. That is where we keep our pornographic magazines or internet sites. It is where we keep our money. It is where we keep the sins that we love to have locked away where we can go all by ourselves and visit them. Unforgiveness. Hate.
The Holy Spirit puts down his blueprints and tools and waits.
We begin to rationalize that the house we live in is not so bad after all. We promise to clean-up that room tomorrow and then God can really get to work, but we get distracted by some shiny un-important thing in there and we are carried off again.
That wall is what we are certain is supporting our house. How can we remove that? God must have made a mistake in the planning. Besides, you worked very hard building that wall and others just like it.
Then there is the secret closet. Well that would be embarrassing. We cannot open that and show it the light of day. Oh no. I cannot let God in there. Other places, but not there. Other days, but not now. After all, I have that wonderful new foundation to count on, and isn't that really enough after all? I mean, I am better off than I used to be, right?
And God waits with plans for an amazing house while we shut the door to our miserable shack.
1 Peter 2
1 Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. 2 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, 3 now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.
The Living Stone and a Chosen People
4 As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— 5 you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house[a] to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For in Scripture it says:
“See, I lay a stone in Zion,
a chosen and precious cornerstone,
and the one who trusts in him
will never be put to shame.”[b]
If we have, in truth, recognized our need for Christ due to our inability to deal with our sins, accepted Him as our only way to salvation, repented, turned from our sins and chosen to follow Him, then He writes His name on the bottom of our boots. In a world full of people with no sense of a ultimate meaning to life, where many see themselves as just another mass produced product of evolution with no unique soul or intrinsic worth, where 15 year old girls hang themselves from school signs because life seems to have no purpose...God sees our value, gives us a purpose, provides hope.
