March 15, 2000
Vernon: Give yourself a good house-cleaning
___PLAINVIEW--Christians regularly need a good "house-cleaning," Steve Vernon told participants at the Panhandle Pastors' & Laymen's Conference.
___"If our lives are temples of the Lord, one of our challenges is to keep from letting the everyday cares crowd us and make our lives so commonplace," said Vernon, pastor of First Baptist Church in Levelland.
___"Things and people clamor for our attention so that we lose time for God," he said. "We're so busy about the things of our lives that we miss the opportunity to save time for the Lord."
___Relationships, jobs, material wealth and other distractions clutter Christians' lives, he stressed.
___"There comes a time for a good house-cleaning," Vernon charged, citing the story of when Jesus ran the money-changers and vendors out of the Temple in Jerusalem.
___"He drove out the clutter and claimed a place for God," he said, advising Christians to do the same thing with their lives. "If we're to be the people God called us to be, we need to clean our 'houses'--to so let the Spirit control us that when people see us, they see Christ."
___The first step of spiritual house-cleaning is prayer, he advised. Christians should tell God, "This life I have is yours; cleanse it," he said.
___The next step is confession, he added. "Our sin clutters our lives and separates us from God. We need to confess our sins. We need to re-examine our lives, take a serious look at our priorities and reorder our commitments. Pray: 'Please take my life and use it.'"
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