Leash Law

 

I have a dog. A big 100lb cat dog.  You know the phrase herding cats? Well it’s a thing especially for a dog that thinks he is a cat! So, for 14 years anywhere he goes, he has to be on a leash, because he just doesn’t listen! 

His leash isn’t there to restrict his fun, it’s there to protect him. Mind you, he has 26 feet to run and chase and sniff and be a dog, but sometimes I have to reel it all the way in to keep him from running in front of cars, chasing after deer, or getting so far from home he would be lost. Without a leash his life would be pure danger and chaos!

I sometimes think I hear God saying, “Now you know how I feel!”  God gave us 10 Commandments not to restrict our fun here on earth, but to protect us! When Jesus was asked what commandments were the most important He narrowed the 10 to just 2.  He gave us the freedom of a very long leash called love.67

Jesus says in Matthew 22: 37- 39, “Love the Lord your God with all you heart, with all your soul, and with all you mind. This is the greatest and the most important commandment. The second most important commandment is like it: Love your neighbor as you love yourself.”

So here is a radical thought, if we love in the way that Jesus showed us to love then all the other commandments fall into place. If I love, I won’t steal. I won’t kill. I won’t covet. I won’t disrespect, but what I will do is listen and go where I am called.  No matter what, Jesus is in control, but we can choose if it’s on the short leash or the long leash of love.

My Microwave

Today I discovered I don’t do a good job of cleaning the ceiling of my microwave.  I clean the easy to reach sides and bottom and of course the removable tray, but I neglect the ceiling because it’s hard to reach and frankly it’s out of sight.  

How often are our lives like that?  We keep a tidy appearance for when someone opens the door onto our lives, a Facebook presentable image, but all the while we know there’s a mess just out of sight.  Interestingly enough though, our lives don’t have to be that way.  The book of Isaiah assures us, “though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.” 

The scarlet spatters of spaghetti sauce on the ceiling of the microwave leave me searching the internet for kitchen hacks to get it clean, but I don’t need to search to remove the spatters of sin in my life. I do however have to give them to Jesus.  He died for each and every spatter, but they seem to cling like stubborn stains, because I choose to hold on to them. He promised forgiveness, but do I believe it? Do I trust Him enough to surrender my stains to Him or do I choose to close the door and pretend they aren’t there?

1 John 1:9 says. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." So today, lets boldly embrace the scrub brush known Jesus and surrender all those nooks and crannies, floors and ceilings, seen and unseen spaces of our heart and know that all your sins are, poof, gone just like the spaghetti sauce spatters on the ceiling of my microwave.