Cleaning Your Soul Closet - Part 1

Cleaning Your Soul Closet - Part 1

As we continue to be transformed into the image of Jesus Christ, we must continually lose more of ourselves. We can’t continually go glory to glory without making room. This process can be compared to a drink. The more of our drink we want in our cup, the more ice we have to remove, the same goes for His glory. The more glory we want to reflect, the more darkness has to come out.

This is simple enough and most of us would agree but we seem to miss a crucial step in this cleansing process. Many times during my spiritual walk I was surprised to find that at times I had to deal with issues I thought I have already dealt with. It was during one of these times I thought I did something wrong or committed a sin I wasn’t aware of when I cried out to Jesus and the Holy Spirit gave me this revelation in which I am about to share.

When we are born again we are made a new creature by receiving the Holy Spirit but our souls are still corrupt. The battleground is the mind, this is where our daily battles are either won or lost. Paul said our minds are transformed day by day which is why we must take up our cross and crucify our flesh everyday.

Everyday, the Holy Spirit works with us to remove darkness we may not even realize we have. It’s a continual process until we are perfected in Christ. Once we overcome one aspect in our lives the Holy Spirit will convicts us or work with us in another aspect, allowing us to be transformed one step at a time. It was this process deep in our souls that the Holy Spirit revealed to me using the illustration of a closet.

Our souls are like messy closets that we threw a bunch of junk in. When we are saved, the cleaning process begins. We open the closet door and start in the front because it is so cluttered we can’t even get to the back if we wanted to. As we go through the junk we decide what to keep and what to throw away. Once one section is done, we start cleaning in another part of the closet. Each piece we take a look at and decide what we are going to do with it. Are we going to let it go and throw it away? Are we going to keep it or are we going to shove it in the back and hope it will go away on its own?

Each time we grab something in our closet, we look to see what it is before we decide what to do with it. Each time we pick up an item we once again experience and relive that part of our past. This may be a good experience such as picking up an old baseball glove and relive that moment we won the varsity championship. This could also be a painful experience such as picking up a picture of an ex from a bad breakup and reliving the heartache of being betrayed. This part of the process is often overlooked but is inevitable if we want to overcome. The key here isn’t if the experience is either good or bad but rather understanding the process and what to do when the experience comes.

To illustrate this further, the example of finding the picture of the ex from a bad breakup may be best. When we pick up this picture we have three options: 1. We can let it go and throw the picture away (get over it). 2. We can do nothing and leave it where it is at (Let it stay on our minds). 3. We can put off dealing with it by burying it behind all the other junk we need cleaned out (storing it deep down to deal with later). It is obvious that option 1 is the best option. Option 2 and 3 are equally bad but if I had to pick the worst I would have to say it would have to be option 3.

When we choose to bury the issue we will still have to deal with it later. This is a huge roadblock to spiritual development that many Christians seem to struggle with. We think we have properly dealt with an issue in our life but then it comes back to the surface and we experience it all over again and will continue to do so until we overcome it and let it go. Jesus taught us that these corrupt things come up from within, it is crucial that we overcome them through the power of the Holy Spirit.

While we cannot escape dealing with them, we can prevent them from putting us back into bondage according to the power that works in us through Christ Jesus! Whenever you face an issue during this cleansing process, nail it to the cross and plead the blood of Jesus, because He overcame we to can overcome through Him!