Once a year in Luverne we have the citywide cleanup or “junk days.” All the residents can go through their homes and almost anything they consider junk, broken, tarnished or simply unwanted gets thrown to the curb, literally.
Right on schedule, city employees go around town with their trucks and trailers to haul it away. Then after a week or so, all that junk is cleaned up and gone. It’s a pretty cool service the city provides for its residents.
Man, how messy it looks around town when all this junk is out there! But wow, when it’s all cleaned up, it almost feels like brand new. The resident’s home is junk-free, the curbs are junk-free and I’ll go out on a limb and say the residents even feel cleaned up and junk-free.
Have you ever thought about comparing junk days and Jesus? Jesus cleans up our junk. Psalm 32:5 NLT “Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide my guilt. I said to myself, ‘I will confess my rebellion to the Lord.’ And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone.”
We don’t have to pile our junk up in the closet and hide it away. Eventually those closets will overflow. Our hearts will be so burdened with sin we won’t have space for God. So throw that junk to the curb!
I think it’s safe to say residents have even come to expect that the city will have its annual clean up days. What if we had a similar expectation, a similar faith perhaps in Jesus?
Romans 10:9-10 NLT “If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved.”
If we believe in our hearts and say with our mouths that Jesus is the risen Lord, our sins will be forgiven and we will be saved.
Once we get that junk to the curb, the city comes by to pick it up and haul it away, like it was never there. Like when we ask God to forgive our sins.
Psalms 130:3 NLT “Lord, if you kept a record of our sins, who, O Lord, could ever survive?”
I’m so thankful God isn’t keeping track. When we ask for our sins to be forgiven, it’s out there on the curb to be picked up and brought away. Also, what a blessing to know that we don’t have to pick up that sin and pack it away again. After all, the city crew doesn’t return your junk to put back in the closet!
Do you feel like you have some closets to clean out? Well, Jesus doesn’t have you on a schedule. You don’t have to wait until next year or wait for the city crew to come by.
Take a little time to reflect on some areas you maybe need to tidy up, get rid of the broken or tarnished. It doesn’t have to be complicated. By faith we simply ask for our sins to be forgiven. Toss that junk to the curb!