With the coming of spring, there is often inspiration towards some sort of spring cleaning. Houses, closets, garages, and vehicles are all likely to be the recipients of attention directed towards tidying and brushing away cobwebs and cleaning surfaces that really seem to show the dirt when the sun is shining brightly. Sometimes these activities get put off until a time when we decide that today really must be the day. I was sitting on our couch and with the sun streaming through the windows, I could see that our fan had become quite dusty. I set to work dusting and washing the blades of the fan and when the job was completed, I was pleased. How can the necessary activity of spring cleaning inspire us towards the cleansing that is needed in our lives as Christians? When the Light of Jesus, the Son of God, shines on us, our sin is revealed. Jesus wants to do His work of transforming our attitudes, thoughts, words, and behaviours that need to be cleaned up. Consider the prayer from Psalm 51:10, “Create in me a clean heart , O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” Our recognition of those things in our lives that need cleaning up, can very naturally lead to a prayer like this. God is prepared to come and to do His holy work of creating clean hearts and renewing right spirits with us. This long siege of dealing with COVID and now the anxiety of the war in The Ukraine has been a time when attitudes of love and forgiveness have been challenged. We will be praying this week for the cleansing power of God to restore us where needed and to renew us to be those who will respond as God leads us in this time we are living. As you are able, please join us for our WEDNESDAY PRAYER TOGETHER tomorrow March 23rd at 1pm.
Thankful that God knows where our hearts need cleaning and He is available to make that happen, Pastor Lola
Our God of Love and Light, as we pray together now, we step into the Light of Your Presence. We are humbly asking You to show us what there is in us that needs cleaning. Please reveal our attitudes or words that do not reflect Your love and grace. Forgive us for excuses we make to try to explain what we know is not pleasing to You. We want to welcome You showing us and convicting us so that You can also deal with our sin and make our hearts clean. Our whole world needs transforming and we are praying that the transforming will begin with us. When we do not seek to understand and to care about others, please forgive us. When we are quick to judge and to see what we think needs rearranging in someone else, please forgive us. When we are well aware that sin has entered our hearts and influenced out outlooks, please forgive us. We are looking to You to do the scrubbing needed to make us clean and to restore us in our relationships with You and with each other. We pray that we will not become passive and not expect that we can be renewed and cleansed by You. Forgive the shrugging of our shoulders and resignation that we will never change. By ourselves we cannot deal with our stubborn resistance to Your desire to make us new, but with Your Divine assistance we know that our stains can be made clean. We pray that as we are forgiven that our view will widen to consider how we who have been forgiven much can also choose to forgive much. We do not see hope for peace in our world apart from You. We thank You for all those who have remained determined in their constant prayers for peace. Please allow us to understand and to follow through on how peace can begin with each of us trusting You and Your work in us. God of all creation we give You praise that Your creative power continues to be expressed in us. We want to surrender to You doing what You intend by creating clean hearts in us. Today we want to acknowledge and to give You thanks that we have seen you at work during this long and exhausting pandemic. We have prayed for the time to come when we could be moving past this and we see that time coming. We are not yet quite there, but we see that possibility in view. We pray for compassionate hearts to regard others with different viewpoints with respect and love. We do pray for extraordinary wisdom to be operating in decisions that world leaders are currently making. We pray for those who are committed to bringing humanitarian aid to those in need. We cannot fix the brokenness of our world but we know that You can bring answers that we do not possess so we look to You our God. Thank You for the refreshing that comes when our spirits are renewed and we are standing in Your Presence cleansed and whole. Here and now we surrender all to You and look to see what Your cleaning up of our lives will bring about. Not just for our sakes but for the sake of our world, we ask You to be Who You are, our God of forgiveness and cleansing and renewal. We bring these sincere prayers to You in Jesus’ Name. Amen.