By Grace Through Faith

Happy March friends! It’s a new month, which means spring is hopefully around the corner!

With spring in mind, I have been starting to slowly make my way into some spring cleaning around the house. I was cleaning out my closet the other day, going through clothes that I forget I have and ones I don’t wear often.

However, I was thinking about how we tend to go through periods in life where we notice it’s time to clean some things out, physically, mentally, and spiritually. We either need to make room for new things or we need to reassess our current lifestyle. What’s working? What’s not? What do I need to let go of? What do I need to do to create room to add things to my life?

I think this same assessment could be applied to our hearts as well. Sitting down daily and really evaluating how your heart is. What emotions are stored in it? Do you need to clean some parts of it out?

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

Many good things and bad things come out of our hearts. The emotions that we experience daily and the thoughts we have with these emotions can find a place in our heart to call home if we let them. The more belief we have in our thoughts, the more they can find a dwelling place in our heart. However, we learn through Scripture that our hearts can be deceitful.

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? – Jeremiah 17:9

The alarming part of our hearts is that they can be deceitful and many emotions can start to be stored in our hearts, some negatively affecting us such as bitterness and jealously. Due to the ways of our hearts, our actions and words flow from our hearts.

“The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” – Luke 6:45

But the good news is that there is hope in Christ! Colossians tells us that if we have been raised with Christ, we can take our thoughts captive, setting our minds on Christ, not on earthly things. Through the power of the Holy Spirit living in us who follow Christ, we can pray for guidance that the Holy Spirit will give us a clean heart, cleaning out any wickedness and planting seeds of holiness inside of us to grow and bloom.

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.” – Colossians 3:12-15

What good news to hear today! If you have been feeling unsettled lately in your words or actions or pursuing a change in your heart, turn towards Christ. Let Him search your heart and give you a renewed spirit and hope this week!

With love,

Claire