Taking Out the Trash

On the way to my children's physical therapy one day, we were stopped at an intersection. Next to us, was a garbage truck. My kids naturally pointed it out to me, and then the Lord placed a lesson upon my heart right then, that the kids needed to hear - and myself as well.

Garbage trucks take our trash and relieve our homes of it. Each week, a garbage man comes to our home to take the refuse. He takes the trash away to a landfill where it is either buried, recycled, or burned - incinerated. No one aspires to be a garbage man. No one desires to operate a garbage truck. No one dreams of fooling with other people's nasty trash, much less their own! Yet, someone has to do it. Even before we had garbage trucks and waste management centers, someone had to dispose of the garbage. For thousands of years, civilizations have burned their refuse in undesirable forsaken areas, designated for such a purpose.

Trash is gross, useless, foul, unclean, and just plain filthy. Living in or near garbage, you find diseases, maggots, and rats. It is no wonder then, that trash can be allegorically compared to sin. Simply put: sin is the spiritual garbage of our life. Jesus is our garbage man.

When we "subscribe to His service" or "register our new address for pick up" through a confession of faith, repentance, and baptism, He comes and removes the trash or sin from our lives. He makes us clean and spotless. He does it over and over, each time that we humble ourselves and repent. Just as a garbage truck doesn't just come just once during our stay at an address, but regularly - weekly, so too is there no "once saved always saved/pray the good prayer and done!".

If we don't put our trash out, will the garbage man still take it? Will he enter our home unbidden and bag it all up himself? No. The same with sin. We have to repent of all of our sins and give it to Jesus willingly, and with a humble and repentant heart. Don't misconstrue what I am saying. I am not speaking of salvation by works, not at all. We can no more save ourselves from sin than a dolphin can dress in a business suit, drive a car, and be C.E.O. of a major manufacturing company. I am trying to paint a picture of REPENTANCE, not a one and done thing, but an ongoing lifestyle of a contrite humbled heart.

No repentance equals sin piling up in our hearts like un-bagged trash. What happens when we don't take out the trash? It overflows, covers our floors, smells up the house something awful, soils our feet and clothing, makes us sick, and invites in nasty flies and rats. It is the same thing with sin. If we refuse to repent and neglect to let Jesus cleanse us of it, it inevitably piles up. We begin to reek with sin to where eventually, it overflows in our life and is exposed. Our souls are soiled, like filthy rags. Sin, like trash, invites into our lives and hearts demons and unclean spirits - just like flies, maggots, and rats. They eat away at our souls, separate us from righteous living and our Righteous God, and make us wretched.

No one wants to be a garbage man. No one can take away our sin, except Jesus. He is the Only One who can and who wants to take our sin. He wants to because He loves us! He can because He is the Son of the Most High God. He alone truly understands the depth of sin and the penalty it bears. He doesn't want us to face the Judgment Throne as filthy, soiled, and covered in sin. Like trash on earth is burned, so will those who are unrepentant of their sin will be cast into Hell - to burn forever. Sin has no place in God's Kingdom, just as trash has no place in our clean homes.

Jesus wants to take our sin and cleanse us with His Blood. If we give Him our trash every day, and are diligent in remaining trash free, then He will present us to the Father in spotless, white robes of righteousness. We can't remove our sin, but He can if we surrender it to Him in repentance. Scripture tells us to be holy because He is holy. Evaluate yourself daily, ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the sin in your life, and repent! It's not a one and done thing - just like household garbage removal isn't a one time deal. But, it is a daily ongoing process of repentance, denying yourself, taking up your cross, and being obedient to Christ - no matter the cost!

May we all seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, may we all be repentant and humble, obedient to the very end. Jesus is my King!

"Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you." - James 1:21

"Those who are pure in their own eyes and yet are not cleansed of their filth..." - Proverbs 30:12

"All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away." - Isaiah 64:6

"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." - Romans 6:23

"Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, 2 instruction about cleansing rites, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. 3 And God permitting, we will do so.

4 It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age 6 and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. 7 Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God."

- Hebrews 6:1-7