Over the past few weeks I have been busily purging “stuff” from my home.  It’s been quite a process!  I inherited quite a bit of my mother’s china and décor items when she passed away many years ago.  Then I inherited more from my Dad, and most recently from my in-laws.  Not to mention, over these many years I’ve amassed my own collection of “stuff”.  I’ve told my kids and my sweet husband to please not buy me anymore things that I need to dust!

So I’ve been de-cluttering the house of “stuff”.  Some people have even asked if we are moving because I’ve tried to sell a lot of my stuff online.  No worries friends!  So far God has not given us a go-ahead to leave the Ponderosa yet!  Instead, I have been going through boxes, closets and cupboards and basically weeding out items that I haven’t used for years and are just dust collectors.  It hasn’t been easy.  We live in a throw-away society but I have really struggled to let go of some things.  There is a lot of sentimental value associated with some items.  For example, my dear mother-in-law started me on my collection of Royal Albert tea cups and china ware.  It pains me to see them on display but unused in my china cabinet.  I dust them faithfully, but the sad reality is that I don’t even like tea!

Stuff.

It clutters up my space.  I hang onto it, because it has been a part of my life for so long.  I have to let it go…

But, it’s so hard to let go!

Oswald Chamber’s words struck me to the core the other day while reading “My Utmost for His Highest” Daily devotional:

“Sin is a thing I am born with and I cannot touch it; God touches sin in Redemption.  In the Cross of Jesus Christ God redeemed the whole human race from the possibility of damnation through the heredity of sin.  God nowhere holds a man responsible for having the heredity of sin.  The condemnation is not that I am born with a heredity of sin, but it is when I realize Jesus Christ came to deliver me from it, I refuse to let Him do so, from that moment I begin to get the seal of damnation.”  (Oct. 5)

Sin.

It clutters up my space.  I hang onto it, because it has been a part of my life for so long.  I have to let it go…

But, it’s so hard to let go!

I find with sin, like with my china tea cups, there is a kind of sentimentality involved with hanging onto it.  I have become far too accustomed to it that there is almost a feeling of comfort surrounding it.  Why, there are even memories associated with it!  I don’t even realize that sin is there anymore.  I’ve tucked it away in the cluttered, secret closet of my soul, and I have become so accustomed to its presence in my life, that it has become part of my inner décor.  Over time however, the dust accumulates and begins to affect every area of my life.  Unfortunately, the longer I hold on to it, the harder it is to let go of sin.  I only realize the grip it has on me when I think about what would happen without it.  That’s the turning point.  Keep it, or let it go!  This is not a simple effort.  Sin is inherited.  I was born with it.  It requires seeing sin for what it is, useless, and destructive to my well-being.  “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in^[a] Christ Jesus our Lord.”  (Romans 6:23)

“Sin is a fundamental relationship; it is not wrong doing, it is wrong being, deliberate and emphatic independence of God.” (Oct. 7)

“Jesus Christ rehabilitated the human race.  He put it back to where God designed it to be, and anyone can enter into union with God on the ground of what Our Lord has done on the Cross.  A man cannot redeem himself; Redemption is God’s “bit”, it is absolutely finished and complete; its reference to individual men is a question of their individual action.  A distinction must always be made between the revealed truth of redemption and the actual conscious experience of salvation in a person’s life”  Oswald Chambers

That conscious determination only comes once I realize that I need redeeming and I consciously say, “Yes!” to Christ so He alone can purge the stranglehold of sin upon me.

Let go and let God!