Renovation Time… A Heart Fit for a King!

Colossians 3:8-10 But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him—

The other day, as I was waiting for company to arrive, I was looking over the stash in my craft closet. I was dreaming of all the projects I MIGHT use this stuff for… including the mother of all projects…  organizing, labeling, obsessively locating all of it into the PERFECT CRAFT STASH!

I was in a trance… I think there was even a smile on my face… until one by one the shelfs fell and all the do-dads (big and small) rained down.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall… I had to ask… is this a Divine Appointment? And God said… “Yep!”

He knows I hate cleaning closets much less removing everything… He also knows I should never be allowed to put it all back without Him. At best I will make everything appear neat and tidy but at worst it will contain everything already there and room for more to come…

Left on my own, this closet will remain a hoarders hidden stash of useless  idols that someday may add value to my life…

Hoarding doesn’t happen overnight. It starts with the fear that someday, THIS (idol) will become NECESSARY and I should’ve/would’ve/could’ve USED it to SAVE MY LIFE (or the life of someone I love).  As I put my stash away on the new and improved shelving Don installed, I will fight for every tiny flower, every dried up marker, every ball of yarn that can be used to make SOMETHING! I will fight with my mind that tells me there is no need to keep anything because there is more where that came from. I will fight with my laziness body that says I will never make the something anyway. And I will fight with the truth that fear, not goodness, is the motivation behind this project that will never end until I FACE my MONSTER… myself.

I see in a mirror dimly… this Divine Appointment isn’t about cleaning a closet. It is about renewing  (think RENOVATION of) my heart.

You’d think that 35 years in the Word with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, intimacy with Jesus, and the love and care of my perfect Daddy, my heart wouldn’t NEED a renovation. It certainly isn’t that God is responsible for the mess. It is indeed MY mess! I have taken His PERFECT TRUTH and snuck in my version… or that which is easier for me to store.

Anger? Wrath? Malice? Slander? And abusive speech from your mouth?

I have put aside MOST of it… but there may have been “just a little piece” I threw in with a box of memories. I may have kept notes to “remind” myself of the bigger life lessons. I may have hidden some “evidence” to be used later should I ever need to be defended. Some “remnants” stored, may color the fabric of my speech, but NOT ON PURPOSE!

A Divine Appointment indeed… since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him—

Do not lie to one another… as if hidden from view means gone… I need God’s renewal/renovation every moment of everyday.

Once saved always saved… I believe this… Jesus said, “It is finished!”.

But turning this wretched mess of a child into royalty takes an earthly lifetime. Sometimes (most times) it takes the destruction of my carefully managed mess to prepare me for God’s renovation. Our God is so good (all the time!) and will never destroy us… only the useless idols made by our own hands, heart and mind.

Some of us assume (or have been taught) that when we laid aside our old self, we magically received a new self that wouldn’t ever need discipline, training, renovating. But if it did/does, our magical God would just do it without our participation, commitment, or toil and sweat.

After all this time, it still shocks me when God takes my blinders off and shows me the mess and sets the appointment with Him for renovation.

He knows it will be painful. He knows I will probably cry, and scream, and maybe even throw my best rendition of a hissy fit tantrum. He knows…

Isaiah 55:8-9 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts. 

But He will settle for nothing less than the PERFECT PLACE to house His PERFECT LOVE. A heart designed and built for royalty… the heart of a child of the ONE TRUE KING.

Psalm 139:23-24 Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; And see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way. 

Renovation Time… create in me a Heart Fit for a King!

**All Scripture quoted comes from the “Bible Gateway” app and is the NASB  version of the Bible