House Cleaning

OCD

You may recognize these initials. You may even use them from time to time. You may have this condition. Clinically speaking, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is when you are seemingly controlled by the urge to do something...over and over...without provocation or even cause. It is an inner want to DO something that after having accomplished it, a sense...no...a flood of relief washes away anxiety that to that point has held you as its hostage.

For me...I like things clean. I like order. My OCD is hereditary! I inherited it from my mother! This is especially true for cluttered kitchen counter tops, unmade beds, out of order couch cushions and important stuff like that. I prefer to have my shirts light to medium starched as heavy starch causes unwanted wrinkles. When I cut my grass, the tread marks of my lawnmower must leave straight impressions on the sod. The lawn just looks better that way!

I drive my family nuts. Its not that they are not all for order and being tidy, its just that they are not controlled by those kinds of impulses as I am. They can keep those urges in check a lot better than I could ever hope to. When I leave town on business for a couple of days, its like Independence Day at the house. My kids actually brag to me that they purposely did not make their beds during those brief days of liberty!

Do you like a 'clean house'?

"Zeal for your house will consume me." John 2:17

The context for this Scriptural quotation applied to the Jesus is what we know to be the 'Cleansing of the Temple'.

"Get out of here! How dare you turn my Father's house into a market." John 2:16

During the most holy of all Jewish Festivals, the Passover, Jesus launches His public ministry evicting those who had defiled the appointed place of worship, the temple, with their greed laden self-centered agenda's. Such included and permitted extortion of sincere worshippers. What made matters even worse was the obvious lack of regard for the very place where God and man were to meet in restored intimate fellowship and communion depicted in the very observance of the Passover itself! You could say that Jesus really 'cracked the whip'...and you would be exactly right! That is how fierce His love and devotion were to His Father and for those who sought to worship Him as the One and Only.

Jesus 'cleaned house'!

As followers of Jesus, we know that our bodies are now His 'temple', (1 Corinthians 3:16-17). We are the place where His living presence dwells. He cares deeply that He be honored as Lord and Christ with use of every muscle, each word from our lips, every thought that catches our focus. If we are not careful, our 'temples' can become just as polluted as the very place where you would have thought sin would have limited or no influence that Jesus had such zeal for. Do you think that He has less holy passion for you and the use of your 'temple' as He did for the building that had been abused by unholy profiteers?

Think again.

I am not saying that Jesus had OCD...but I do think that it is always wise to keep your 'house in order'. If He 'cleans your house', take that as an indicator that His passion for you is nothing less than at fever pitch and that anything that lacks order in honoring your Heavenly Father will not be tolerated for long.