clean, clean, clean

In a few days Passover will begin...and one of the things that takes place is that the house is cleaned and all leaven(items with yeast)products are removed from the house...

When we take of the Lord's supper we are encouraged to " let a man examine himself, and then let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. (1 Cornithians 11:28)" and the word "examine" in the Greek means "to throughly examine"....in other words, to throughly examine himself before they took of the Lord's supper......

But the emphasis in both is the sense of being clean.....In the Bible, leaven was a symbol of sin and impurity, therefore it was to be removed so that the house would be cleaned and worthy of celebrating the Passover Seder.....And when we take of the Lord's supper, it is the same, the reason we need to throughly examine ourselves is to make sure that we are clean and that we are worthy of taking of the body and blood of the Lord...in the next verses of 1 Corninthans 11, Paul warns of the consequences of what happens when one doesn't examine himself and partakes of the Lord's supper.

I remember well the emphasis on cleanliness while I was in the hospital...people who had illnesses couldn't come in to visit me and I remember there were times where people had to come in with masks and robes because I had an illness that the doctors and others didn't want me to give to others....

Now if the doctors and others would take care to make sure that everything was clean and making sure that disease didn't spread...what about us? Are we making sure that we are clean, getting rid of all the things that are not of God in our lives? We have to remember that things that we have in our lives that are not of God can spread to other people and infect them as well; things like bad attitudes, gossiping, etc...

So if we are to be children of God and examples of Him to other people, we have to make sure that we have that we are the best ones possible. So each day, let us take a spiritual "bath" by examining ourselves against the Scriptures to make sure that we are clean, being a fresh aroma to others, not a garbage heap.....