Daily Devotion | September 16, 2020

Clean-up Week

by Pastor Steph

You have heard it said, “One man’s junk is another man’s treasure.”

This week is garbage pick up week in Fargo. It usually happens in May, but like many things in this COVID world, clean-up week was postponed until September. I look forward every year to garbage pick up week. It means I can purge. It feels good to clean out and clean up the excess junk I’ve stored in basement closets or the garage. I like clean-up week for me, but not really for everyone else. During the dumping days of garbage week, the boulevards look pretty bad. Strange cars drive slowly through my neighborhood and foot traffic picks up as people come searching for hidden treasure in the midst of my junk.

Our sin is a lot like the junk on the boulevard. When we are ready to confess our sin and deal with our past; the hurts, the habits and the hang ups, it feels good to get it out and kick it to the curb, but it’s harder to look at and deal with someone else’s sin in our lives. It’s ugly and messy and junks up my view. My heart has been wrestling with why that is. If it feels good for me to get rid of my junk, why can’t I celebrate you releasing yours? As a follower of Jesus, I believe we are called to live with a non-judgmental spirit. To see the best in each other, in the midst of the mess, and in the piles of junk. Living with this spirit, helps others see in me, the One who promises to take all of our junk and turn it to treasure.

Jesus as the garbage collector, takes the junk of our lives, the sin hidden deep in our souls, and swaps it for God’s rich treasure that is stored up for you and for me in Heaven. To live like Jesus is to sit with one another’s mess and not judge each other for our junk, but rather like Jesus look at one another and see a child of God. A person created in God’s image. A rue transformed into treasure.

“Have Mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.”
Psalm 51:1-2

Dear God forgive me for seeing junk where you are working on treasure. Help me to live like you, graciously forgiving the sins of others as you have first forgiven me. Amen.

-- Pastor Steph

 

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