Bath Time....Spiritually Speaking That Is

Whew.  Have you ever had one of those times when you had been doing something especially nasty, filthy or dirty and you (or your family) decided that you really stink?  I have had times when I had gotten, in all honesty, quite dirty.  I got home and decided I needed some clean fresh clothes on.  So I went into the bed room, stripped off those filthy garments and then put on some nice freshly washed clothes and they smelled so nice.   For a brief time.  For you see, there is one big problem with taking of the filthy clothes and putting on those clean clothes...if you do not bathe your body you will just carry the stink over to the clean clothes.

I share this for a reason.  Tonight at worship the passage was from Ephesians 4:22-30.  Even though the minister's message was about replacing the bad with something holy, I had something else that just kept coming back to me.  Verses 22-24 state:

"...that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness."

Now verses 22 and 24 speak about putting off the old man and putting on the new man that is created by God to be righteous and holy.  But I think for many of us, I know it is for me, the real challenge is found in verse 23.  You see, once we put off the old man we have to be "renewed in the spirit" - or to put it another way, we need to be spiritually cleansed in our inner most person.  I know I need to fight the bad habit of trying to replace the old man with a new one, without truly letting God cleanse the who I am deep down.  I realized, again, that just as in real life, we need to continually return to the cleansing power of the Spirit of God for our spiritual bath time.

In Titus 3:5 we read:

"not by works of righteousness which we have done (changing our outer self), but acdcording to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit." 

In other words, dear Lord, wash, cleanse me and renew me that I may truly put on the righteousness that is from God.  Help me not be one that soils the new man and grament of righteousness that You have clothed me with.  Amen.