I’ve been reading through 2Timothy and in 2Timothy 2, I read, then reread, then reread again the following verses…
20 In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for noble purposes and some for ignoble.1
21 If a man cleanses himself from the latter, he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work.(a)
1 In the foot notes from the .net bible ignoble probably is referring to vessels used for refuse or excrement.
Let’s take some time to think through what this should look like for you and me. The first thought that comes to my mind is every believer has both types of articles in their house. The second thought that comes to my mind is that I should do all I can to clean out, get rid off, scrub, and clean those that are “refuse”. Let me share my thoughts on these two with an eye toward changing my life and hopefully helping each of you who read this do the same. Before I go into these let me first share that house in this context is referring to my life, my heart, soul and mind, to me. To put it another way, it is everything that God will hold me eternally accountable for.
Everyone has both noble and ignoble items in their house. As believers we’re far from perfect, but more importantly to me, these verses are saying that as good as I may see myself, I have areas of my life that are useful for noble purposes and I have areas of my life that are useless. The reason I say some are useless is as the verses state they are to be cleansed out of my life. The thought that I need to be cleansing things out of my life, is something that strikes to the heart of my pride. I’m not that bad am I? God is saying, yes Lee, you are that bad. By extension everyone of us who are believers have areas where the scrub brush and 409 need to be applied.
Okay, so we all have some areas that need to be cleaned and removed from our lives. Great that sounds like fun. Well, probably not all that fun, but very important to do. Why is this so important to clean out this “refuse”. Well, the verses state that “If a man cleanses himself from the latter, he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work.”-NIV. So, I understand this to mean that first it’s conditioned on me cleaning. I need to get out the scrub brush and 409 and start cleaning. Second, I need to do this if I intend to be holy and useful to Jesus. Third, I need to do this in order to be prepared for any good work. Many of you reading this are involved in E2 and are working at impacting men for Christ through evangelism and edification. If I want to be prepared for this good work, then I need to break out the 409 and scrub brush and get to cleaning.
So, I need to do this if I am to be effective in E2. How am I do this scrubbing and cleaning anyway. We’ll my thoughts have taken me back to the basic of having Jesus change me from the inside (“I the Lord Search the heart” -Jer 17:9,10). I know Jesus loves me and has my best interest at heart. I know that Jesus will only work for the believers eternal good (Rom 8:28,32).
So for me one way is spend time alone with Jesus everyday, so that he gets that chance when I’m listening to identify, humble, and clean me from within. I call this my quiet time. Let me encourage you to get that put into your life and not to let life crowd this out. There are numerous helps on the quiet time, but make sure it includes application to your life. Let Jesus change you from the inside. Next, for me is men who I can talk with and be open with and who will call me out if they see areas where I need to do some house cleaning. Let me encourage each of you to get these two elements grafted into your life, Quite Time and Accountability.
Let me summarize my application from these verses. I am assured of needing to clean up my life. I need Jesus and those Jesus brings into my life to help in this process. This cleaning is important and it’s doable. I am with Gods help able to clean up my life. If I don’t get to cleaning then I am left with the alternative of being useless. If I don’t clean up my life, I’m sacrificing eternally. Jesus is saying that to the degree I don’t clean up my life, I’m not going to be able to participate in E2. That hurts, since I want eternal gain. I want to be busy about building up my treasure in heaven. So, my application is to get time with men, so I sent an e-mail to two men who hold me accountable and asked them to breakout the 409 and help me scrub. Let me encourage each of you to do the same.
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