Spring Cleaning in between the Blossoms

cleaning to get to any last crumbs that might be lingering in the corners of the refrigerator drawer, the cabinets, the floor...

the view inside our refrigerator after the Passover cleaning!

after clearing out the `chametz` a shelf is free for the Matzah!

This day is to be a memorial for you.  You are to keep it as a feast to ADONAI.  Throughout your generations you are to keep it as an eternal ordinance.  For seven days you are to eat matzot, but on the first day you must remove hametz from your houses,  --Exodus 12:14~15

It happens so fast once the first blossoms start to open.
The approaching weeks before Passover also have that same excitement as we are coming into the season of new life and Resurrection.  Passover and Cherry Blossoms come around at the same time.  God`s plan is so perfect, and there are reasons for His seasons!

 When doing the Passover cleaning I have a kind of desperation to go into those deep corners of the cabinet and the refrigerator to get out each crumb and dust that is accumulating.

Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit , bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.  --2 Corinthians 7:1

Then it becomes like a race to get the hametz (anything with leaven) out of the house and clean the cabinets before the blossoms fully open.  Just when you just want to be outside all the time, you know that you need to clean out the `hametz` which takes some time indoors. 

When I was cleaning I realized this bit of wisdom---you can`t clean with a dirty sponge.

In the same way, when our heart is full of `dirt` and `sin` and we haven`t sought God to clean our heart, and we bring all that into our lives, it is a little like that isn`t?!
Well, calling our hearts a dirty sponge sounds a little strong, but as I think about it...well, yecch, it is!

 We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.  We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.   ---Isaiah 64:6 

We keep collecting the dirt and our hearts are like that sponge, and we go about life not even knowing how ...well..how dirty it is. I had no idea until God showed me through Yeshua!! It will be exactly four years ago tomorrow that I was saved through Yeshua! I  just realized that while writing this, this year it will coincide with Passover!  

God cleans out our hearts, like the way we look into find the `hametz` in the cabinet.  He searches our hearts and makes us clean!!  That is  what God does through Yeshua, the unblemished Lamb who is the Passover Lamb who came to take the sin of the world!!

Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!  --John 1:29

Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD:  though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.   --Isaiah 1:18

The blood of Yeshua cleanses us from sin.  Yeshua is the beginning, the middle and the end. He was there in the Exodus and before; He was there in the Temple and He will be there in the Revelation when the streets are sparkling clean and the river of the water of life will be there bright as crystal,

flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the city`s street. 

--Revelation 22:1~

The message of the gospel is so simple and beautiful.
We are like that sponge, and we need to be made new (as in my metaphor of the cleaning when we can`t get anything clean with the dirty sponge) and often we don`t even know it! But  God knows that. He made us. He knows us.  And He loves us.  That is why He gave us His only Son who died for our sins. 

Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.

---Psalm 51:10

God Bless you and have a great week!