How to Spring Clean Your Spirit:

While you’re cleaning out closets and sweeping under the furniture, think about this: Spring cleaning, while worth the effort, will only last for a season, but spiritual cleaning could have an eternal influence. So don’t just dust behind those book shelves, dust off that favorite Bible and get ready for a spiritual spring cleaning.

1. Cleanse Your Heart – Get Spiritually Heatlthy: The Bible encourages us to draw close to God and allow our hearts and bodies to be cleansed. This is the first step in our spring cleaning project. We can’t clean ourselves. Instead we must draw near to God and ask Him to do the cleansing.

Romans 10:9 “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”

Psalm 51:10 “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.”

Hebrews 10:22 “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.”

2. Clean Out Your Mouth – Deep Clean Inside and Out: Spiritual cleansing requires deep cleaning — it is housekeeping that goes beyond what others see and hear. It’s a cleansing from within — inside and out. As your heart gets clean, your language should follow. This is not just talking about bad language, but also negative talk and pessimistic thoughts that contradict the Word of God and faith. This includes the challenge to stop complaining.

Luke 6:45  “A good man out of the treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.”

Philippians 2:14 “Do all things without murmurings and disputings:”

3. Renew Your Mind – Take Out the Garbage: This is one of the biggest areas of struggle for most of us — removing the garbage from our minds. Garbage in equals garbage out. We must feed our minds and spirits the Word of  God instead of the garbage of this world.

Romans 12:2 “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”

II Corinthians 10:5 “casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;”

4. Repent from Hidden Sin – Clean Out Your Spiritual Closets: Hidden sin will destroy your life, your peace, and even your health. The Bible says to confess your sin – tell someone, and reach out for help. When your spiritual closets are clean, the heaviness from hidden sin will lift.

I John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Psalm 32:3-5 “When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah. I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the quity of my sin. Selah”

5. Release Unforgiveness and Bitterness – Get Rid of Old Baggage: Any sin will weigh you down, but long kept unforgiveness and bitterness is like old baggage in the attic you just can’t seem to part with. You are so familiar with it, you don’t even realize how it is hindering your life.

Hebrews 12:1  “Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.”

Ephesians 4:31-32 “Let all bitterness, and wrath and anger and clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”

6. Involve Jesus in Your Daily Life – Let the Son Shine In: What God wants most from you is relationship – friendship. He wants to be involved in the big and small moments of your life. Open your life, let the light of God’s presence shine into every part, and you’ll have no need for a yearly spiritual cleaning. Instead experience daily, moment to moment refreshing of your spirit.

I Corinthians 1:9 “God is faithful, by whom ye were called, unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Psalm 56:13 “For thou hast delivered my soul from death: wilt not thou deliver my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living.”

7. Learn to Laugh at Yourself and at Life: Some of us take life too seriously, or we take ourselves too seriously. Jesus wants you to enjoy yourself, and learn to have some fun. God made you for His pleasure!

Psalm 28:7 “The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise him.”

Psalm 126:2 “Then was our mouth filled with laughter and our tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen, The LORD hath done great things for them.”

Ladies, without the love and joy of Christ shining through us, we cannot fully enjoy all that God has blessed us with: our families. Allow God to wash you with the water of His Word.

(about.com Christianity by Mary Fairchild)