Ear to Hear

Good Morning,

     Spring cleaning, anyone?  This is the time of year when we begin to discard old clothing and trinkets that hold no heart value, yet clutter our shelves.  We sweep the cobwebs out of the corners and wash windows to let the sunshine in.  We clean and rearrange closets and drawers, to make room for the new.  That's only the beginning for me!  I shampoo my carpet, clean the blinds, scrub the base-boards, wash and iron all curtains and window treatments.  I turn my mattresses over and vacuum them, I move all furniture and clean behind them.  I clean the vents and finally I clean the pantry out and every cabinet is washed down inside and out.  From top to bottom, every light fixture, every bathroom cabinet is washed, and then six months later the process begins all over again.  Wow, I am exhausted writing and thinking about what lies ahead!  It has been like clock work for me since I was a little girl.  My grandmother trained me in this fashion, and here I am, some fifty odd years later, still doing the same thing.  My grandmother is at home with the Lord now, yet what she has trained me to do has become a part of me.  I don't have to think to much about it, I just do it.  Though I have to admit, I have to speak to myself to do it, but I do it, no matter what.

     I said all that to say, that we must yield to the training of the Lord.  Every Sunday, every mid-week service, every time we read, meditate, and confess the Word, we are being trained by the Father.  Year after year, the training is working itself in us.  I didn't know how deeply my grandmother's training in keeping a clean house would affect me.  Yet, look at how something so simply done, has become a part of my makeup.  I know that our Father has used something as simple as reading, hearing and doing His Word, over and over again to eventually have the Word become a part of who we are.  For me, 33 years of being born-again and regularly reading, hearing, confessing, studying, and hopefully doing His Word, is intermingled in all I am.  I am still amazed at how deep the Word has weaved itself in my heart.  I see the majority of daily living through the eyes of the Word.  All the while the Lord is still at work in all of us, until we see, think, and behave like He does.  Psalms 138:8 says, "The Lord will perfect that which concerns me; Your mercy and loving-kindness, O Lord endure forever – forsake not the works of your own hands."  The Lord is continually bringing us to completion, if we allow and let Him, through and by His training.  He is cleansing us with His Word to get rid of all the cobwebs and dust and dirt that has our vents not working to its highest potential.  John 15:2-3, says, "Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.  Now you are clean through the Word, which I have spoken unto you."  Let's read Ephesians 5:26, "That He might sanctify and cleanse it (the believing church) with the washing of water by the Word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such things; but that it should be holy and without blemish."  There it is!  We are washed, cleansed by the Word, His Word that removes every spot, wrinkle, or blemish.  He is more diligent and more committed to us than My grandmother's training.  He is digging deeper into our hearts and cleaning out the closets, scrubbing off the filth of the world from the windows of our eyes.  Throwing out the cluttered and hoarded thoughts, shampooing away stored up generational weaknesses.  To cleanse means, washing, purifying, purging; to free from matter that contaminates or pollutes; free from dirt, filth or disease; to free from whatever diminishes the distinctive quality or essential character.