Staying Clean

   This morning I was doing some scrubbing and cleaning and the Lord used that time to teach me about our spirits. When we come to Him under Jesus' blood we are forgiven, but we still have grunge on us that we need to confess and be forgiven for.
    Through the years I have gone through a lot of levels of repentance! The first thing I had to come to terms with was that I'm not free to say whatever comes to mind in every situation. I had to go to a lot of people and apologize before I got a grip on this one! I finally became so tired of apologizing that I learned to keep my mouth shut!
     Today however during the scrubbing time the Lord was teaching me that our spirits are not a "one and done" cleaning item. We need to carefully take care to keep them clean daily! Daily!
     In our lives, we do a lot of cleaning so we should be able to grab this concept. We wash our dishes after each use, we wash our clothing after wearing them. We vacuum, we dust, we mow lawns, we brush our teeth and our hair for example. When we look at these things it makes sense that we need to clean a lot of areas in our lives, so we need to be sure to not neglect cleaning our spirits too. That makes sense, doesn't it?
     Next question then is how do we clean our spirits? Prayer is good! Praying and asking the Holy Spirit to shine His light into our spirits and show us any area that needs attention is excellent!
     The Holy Spirit is the Teacher that Jesus told us would come to guide us, and He will guide us into cleaning our spirits or another word for it is sanctification. He is our Counselor, Comforter, and Corrector, so this is all in His job description! He will show us people we need to forgive, people that we need to ask to forgive us, habits we need to give up, wrong things we've said and done that we need to bring to the Lord and ask forgiveness for. Even after we've done this for a while, He'll dig further in our past and show us more that we will want to release and be cleansed from.
     We will want to stay in a close relationship with the Holy Spirit, asking Him, how have I done today? Is there any area that I have fallen short in and need cleaning in? And then be quick to respond, don't hesitate, maybe we do need to release hurt or offense first and then be sure to give forgiveness, but do it, don't hold back.