In 2017, I wrote a book called Renewed: How Jesus Transforms Your Mind. This is part of a series of articles based on that book’s content. Hope you find them helpful.
A swept house isn’t the same as a godly one.
There’s something liberating about asserting control over an area of your life. It sounds like a paradox — control and liberty don’t seem like comfortable bedfellows — but we’re far more at ease when we arrest the things that feel beyond our control. That’s no accident: self-control is listed as a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22). By the Spirit, believers have the potential to be the most self-controlled, and therefore the most liberated, people on the planet.
My wife and I have watched the show Hoarders in stunned bewilderment. But hoarding isn’t really about mess; it’s about control. People who’ve been wounded learn to manage their pain by collecting, and the very hoarding that makes them feel good keeps them sick. We can all be spiritual hoarders — houses cluttered with idols that slipped in unnoticed and were allowed to cohabit with God. And Jesus said it first:
“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person… it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings… seven other spirits more evil than itself.” — Matthew 12:43-45
Here’s where people get blindsided: a clean house is not a godly house. A home can have everything in its place and still be devoid of God. Satan is perfectly satisfied with you living a moral life, if it keeps you blind to the Gospel. You can clean up, find people of like morals, feel accepted at church, and still be spiritually dead inside. Only when the Holy Spirit takes residence does a permanent “no vacancy” sign go up. Until then, there’s still room in the inn.
That’s why choosing the Lord is never only an embrace of Jesus; it’s a rejection of every other god. “Choose this day whom you will serve… But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” (Joshua 24:15). You can’t welcome the Spirit and keep giving room and board to unclean spirits. And the evicted ones keep circling back, setting out bait to lure you outside the safety of fellowship — the way a lioness waits for one antelope to wander from the herd. Keeping a clean house simply means remaining in fellowship with the Holy Spirit and letting him keep things in order. The nature of that house is freedom (John 8:36; Galatians 5:1) — but a paradox runs through it: the disciplines and commands we’re tempted to resist are the very things that lead us into liberty. Three things frame the house.
Issues of the heart
Integrity means you’re the same person in public as in private — living all of life as before the Lord. We struggle here for one reason: deep down we don’t fully believe Jesus is better. We trust him for eternal life but not for abundant life now (2 Corinthians 1:20), so we look elsewhere for a fuller satisfaction. The good news is that even with imperfect integrity, we can keep a clean house if we’re faithful to confess. “Confess your sins to one another… that you may be healed” (James 5:16) — to one another, note, not necessarily to a pastor. I once wounded a friend through a leadership mistake and was too proud to admit it; the awkwardness sat on me for a long time, until I finally confessed and felt the burden physically lift. Nothing is so liberating as confession.
Issues of the mind
First, remember your thoughts are not private. When you were born again, your heart became the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit — he’s home, watching every thought on a screen. Nothing slips by. Second, stop flooding your mind with what displeases him. You can’t escape every bit of the world’s garbage, but many of us pour it in intentionally and then wonder why we can’t live in victory. From experience, I’ll just say: don’t risk the triggers. Third, declare the truth to yourself — preach the gospel to yourself daily. “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Remind yourself every day that you don’t deserve the grace you’ve received, and that gratitude will keep your affection for Jesus greater than your affection for sin.
Issues of the spirit
If the heart is the center of desire and the mind the center of planning, the spirit is the source of your countenance — the temperament of your whole person. Sometimes your heart wants the Lord and your mind knows what to do, but you simply lack the motivation; that’s a spiritual problem. “A man’s spirit will endure sickness, but a crushed spirit who can bear?” (Proverbs 18:14). God doesn’t want only your spirit; he wants your whole life, because the physical feeds the spiritual. Give the Spirit control of your appetites — food, drink, sex, all of it — and he’ll lead you into the moderation and sober-mindedness that keep you healthy enough to spot the bait when it’s set.
This is the ongoing, lifelong work of every believer who wants intimacy with the Father, and it’s at once the most frustrating and the most grace-bearing part of the journey. We will fail, and grace will catch us. Transformation doesn’t come from how hard we beat ourselves up; it comes from the embrace of grace that says, let’s begin again. A clean spiritual house is mopped with the grace of God. So don’t be discouraged by failure — he certainly isn’t. Keep calm, and trust him.
