It amazes me how I can put on blinders and totally miss seeing a mess or a thick layer of dust on my furniture. My family dislikes it when I take my blinders off, like I did recently as we were getting ready to put our house on the market. I spent a little over two weeks de-cluttering, cleaning, and repairing our house. It surprised me how much things had built up. When we got done (yes, I did have help) I felt like a load had been lifted.
Sometimes I find that I need to de-clutter my heart. Seems like it doesn’t take much some days for things like pride, jealousy, laziness or bitterness to build up and before I know it I have a mess on my hands. In the past I might have tried harder to keep a “clean house” instead of remembering that Jesus has already taken care of that. I simply need to remember and apply the gospel. Jesus plus nothing equals everything.
Hmm…what does that look like practically in everyday life? I have heard so much about applying the gospel to my life in the past three years, but at times still have a hard time understanding what that means day to day. How does that work when I am having a hard time loving someone, or I find that I have been incredibly selfish or even when I need to say, “no, I won’t be able to help you with that right now?” I think this is something that most of us wrestle with.
Because I work in and attend an amazing gospel-based church I have some great teachers, but I can always use more help! I think that God has brought someone else across my path that can continue to help me understand what it means to apply the gospel to my life on a daily basis.
Last week a new friend stopped by my office to chat about how he might serve in our church. Rick likes to help others understand how Christ changes us…how he sanctifies us. Since I am a very simple person, I need very practical, down-to-earth (or maybe just down to my level) language. I began to suspect that Rick might be able to help when he explained that the logo for his counseling practice was actually a graphic of a coffee ring! There’s an entirely cool meaning behind all that, but all I could think was, “wow, anyone who can use a coffee ring for their business logo is my kind of person!” So when Rick followed up to our meeting with an email with a link to his blog, Coffee Break, I was anxious to read what he had to say. I wasn’t disappointed! In a very short post, he was able to get to the heart of what I need…taking the life-changing gospel and showing how that fleshes out in one’s life.
I hope I got your curiosity up and that you take a look at his blog post. Then I hope you subscribe to Rick’s blog. I think you’ll find it helpful. And I’d really enjoy hearing about how you remember the gospel in your everyday life.
Well, the de-cluttering may be done, but now I must go and make sure it stays that way. It really is an ongoing process…much like how God changes us…one day at a time!
