Monday, April 16, 2012

EMPTYING OUR DIRT DEVIL

The end of the winter season at an RV park often brings items left next to the garbage dumpsters. These are discarded items that still work, and are left for someone to take and use. The other day as I dropped off some scraps of wood, I picked up a small item sitting on the ground.

It was a nearly new red Dirt Devil hand vacuum. I took it home and as I suspected, it just needed a good cleaning to make it work right. I found it has an adapter for narrow spaces - just what we need for getting dust out of our window tracks.

Then today I drove past the dumpsters and there sat another vacuum, a nearly new black upright, and another Dirt Devil! Again I took it home, emptied the dirt chamber, cleaned the filter, and now we have a better upright than the one we've had. Tomorrow I'll put our old noisy, but still working upright vacuum by the dumpster for someone else to use.

Both of these abandoned items had the same problem - their owners forgot to empty the dirt. This made me think of our need for spiritual cleaning by confession and absolution. If you and I don't get all our sin dirt removed by forgiveness, soon nothing in our life works well.

Calvary is God's eternal garbage dumpster. When Jesus died, He got rid of our sins and the sins of all people. The Bible says He has removed our sins from us "...as far as the east is from the west." (Psalm 103:12) That makes Jesus our divine Garbage Man, and what He removes is gone forever.

The next time your life seems out of kilter, check whether or not you need to do some personal house-cleaning. John the disciple encourages us, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9)

Jesus empties our Dirt Devil - now there's an interesting concept!

No comments: