Deuteronomy 16-20

I walk into my closet and know I need to purge. I know it feels good once it’s done. I just hate the thought of “doing.” I can come up with so many reason to keep those blouses I haven’t worn in three years. I mean, I just might start that diet and lose those twenty pounds so those blouses fit again.

I might.

God told the Israelites to purge the evil from among them. It wasn’t a suggestion. But Scripture tells us they didn’t always do that. They came up with many reasons to hold on to things that should have been eliminated. The outcome was always disastrous.

I think we can apply this same principle to the Church in 2024. So much of the evil God pointed out to the Jews has found a home in our churches. And we’ve come up with many reason to keep the evil there. Call it tolerance. Call it love. Call it preference. Call it being relative to societal changes. Sin has found a home where it should not be.

I think I can apply this same principle to myself. I have to ask myself if the sins God addressed to the Jews have found a home in me? Or have I done the work? Have I purged sin in my actions, my thoughts, my words? When I recognize that sin hiding behind a good deed or time in God’s Word, do I immediately throw it under the blood of Jesus, or do I tell myself I’ll get to that later?

Purging is hard. It takes work. It has to be intentional. The thing is NOT purging the evil in us has disastrous results.

You know that, if you have purged, surrendered to God, confessed and repented of sin, there is joy that comes from being clean. You know it’s worth the “doing.”

Purging my closet can wait. Purging my heart cannot. And purging the Church might be something we can work on together.