WFW: Lessons From My Curtains...

Hi, everybody! I'm FINALLY back... I hope these long spirts of no blogging will become less and less frequent. Right now, though, it's gonna be a little slow... I will try my best to update you all as often as possible, but life is busy. (And I apologize to Jean for missing last weeks Word For Wednesday.) Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Have you ever noticed how just a small change can make a world of difference? The other day, I replaced my bedroom curtains; I've had them ever since I can remember. There was nothing wrong with them; they were just old. Time for a replacement. My mother had been wanting to put up some new curtains for a while. We talked about a few options, and my mother found something that would work; but we never got around to implementing the plan. I had merely tucked away the curtains to be put up at some other time. (What a procrastinator I am!) Over the weekend, we finally put the curtains up...

Aren't they lovely? I couldn't help but notice how much better it looked in my otherwise not-so-clean room; not only do the curtains look beautiful, but they also provide a "clean feeling," a "fresh" look. It also allows more sunlight to enter my room through the window.

As I was reflecting on this, I began to think of how this applies to our spiritual lives. When God says, "Change this," many times, we don't get around to acting on it, for whatever reason -- maybe we don't want to deal with it, or maybe we don't think it's that urgent. Whatever the reason, we stash it away somewhere to be taken care of at a later time. However, we fail to realize that if we would just obey the Lord, we would feel so much better as each layer of dirt is washed off of us; each little change can make us feel more "fresh," more clean. We are made clean through God's Word; Jesus said, "You are already clean because of the WORD which I have spoken to you," and David said in Psalms 12:6, "The WORDS of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times." Acts 3:19 states, "'Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of REFRESHING may come from the presence of the Lord...'"

As we obey the Lord, we change for the better --- we look and act different, just as the NEW curtains make the room look different. Ephesians 4:22-24 "...that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the NEW man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness." When I first took down the old curtains, the window was quite bare; God may have to strip us "bare" of ourselves in order to make us something beautifully new. But, like the new curtains which allow more sunlight to shine through the window, we allow the Son's light to shine brighter into our lives when we "put off the old man" and "put on the new man" as God has commanded us. 2 Corinthians 4:6 "For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has SHONE IN OUR HEARTS to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

However, we must keep the curtains OPEN; that is, we must not allow the curtains to close over our hearts. We thought that the old curtains were just fine, but they obstructed the Son's Light from reaching us to its fullest extent. The Bible puts it this way: " But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away" (1 Corinthians 3:15-16). In the Old Testament, a veil also referres to the veil of the temple; this veil separated the sanctuary from the Holy of Holies -- where God's Presence was. When Jesus died, Matthew records that the veil was "ripped in two from top to bottom" (Matthew 27:51). The veil is taken away in Christ, so that we can experience all the fullness of God!