One wall of my lounge is glass, a sliding door and windows facing east, letting in lots of light and sunshine. A wall like that has advantages and disadvantages. Living near the sea and enduring many windy days adds up to dirty windows that are visible and unsightly. Add to that, I have a little dog who uses my windows as a palette for her ‘doggy art’!
At age over eighty, cleaning windows is not an easy task. So, when I do get the job done, I’m delighted with my efforts until…. the early morning sun shines on the smudgy bits I missed. What I thought were clean windows turned out to be not-so-clean windows after all.
How like our lives as God’s children! God delights in transparent lives, clean and letting in His light but, to our shame, we often have ‘smudgy bits’, areas we have neglected to clean which only show up when the light of God’s Word shines on them.
What do the smudgy bits do to us? Smudgy bits in our lives spoil our fellowship with the Father and with our fellow believers.
1John 1:5-6 NLT
[5] “This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all. [6] So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth.”
Does God censure us for these smudgy bits we have yet to clean up? No! He gives us His solution instead.
1 John 1:7 NLT
[7] But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.”
Like windscreen wipers that keep cleaning the rain off the windcreens of our vehicles as we drive, so the blood of Jesus continually cleanses us as we walk in the light with God and each other.
So, let’s thoroughly clean the windows of our souls so that God’s light can shine through us, unspoiled by smudgy bits. How do we know when our hearts are clean? We have fellowship with one another and with the Father and the Son and… the peace of God guards our hearts, and minds through Christ Jesus.