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"The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armour of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarrelling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires." (Romans 13:12-14 ESV)
Recently my wife went to the games chest, where we store all our family games, to collect a game for us to play. We had decided to give the television a few hours off on a Sunday night, it had been overworked.
To my wife's consternation the particular board-game box we wanted to use, was covered in green mould. So she brought the box to me in the kitchen and I dutifully dispatched the mould with some bravado, panache and copious amounts of mould-remover and spray-wax job done.
Woe was me, for it was not done. When I opened the box the board itself was also contaminated with mould. Humph! So I repeated the process above until all the game's surfaces were squeaky clean with a glossy shine.
We returned to the living room to play our game, much to the TV's disregard.
As we played I considered how the mould had got there, inside a large chest. True, it was in a damp corner of the house with no access to sunshine to warm it up, and I guess this was aggravated by the tumble-dryer in the spare-room thrice-weekly throwing out abundant amounts of moisture. Of course all those lovely greasy finger-prints were like a propagation banquet to mould in a moist environment.
Living in the world, we get crud accreted to our beings too. Worse still, if we are not regularly petitioning our Saviour we get mouldy--we allow insidious sticky finger-prints of the world into our lives, through which sin can corrode our thoughts, words and deeds.
Praise God that we can be cleaned up, inside and out, through the Grace of Jesus. I believe He is happy to minister His Love to us, and through us. We become cleansed, restored and empowered to be His delight.
Prayer: LORD, we are too easily misdirected by the world to our selfish desires. We are a stiff-necked and stubborn people--we want our own way to be Your plan. We implore You today to cleanse the meditations of our hearts' desires, to remove the world's sticky fingerprint intrusions, so we may have a pure heart. LORD reside in us once more, the apple of Your eye, so we can be a vessel for Your presence, in Jesus' name, Amen.
Roderick Marshall
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