Christian Living

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First Things First
Clean Up Your Own House

Matthews 23:23-28

Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint (money) and Anise (seed, plant) and Cummin ( a condiment, stored goods) and have omitted the weightier matter of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith. These ought you to have done, and not to leave the other undone.

You blind guides (one who show the way by leading, directing, or advising), which strain (pull draw, or stretch tight, to altar the relations between points or limits, to be subjected to great stress) at a gnat, and swallow (devour) a camel.

Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.

Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.

Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye are like unto whited Sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.

Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous (meeting the standard of what is right and just, morally right, guiltless) unto men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.

First means, coming or located before all others, earliest, acting or occurring prior to all others. Ranking above all others in importance or quality, foremost, best. First place position in a race or contest.

We are in a race for Heaven and we have to position ourselves first in holiness and righteousness before we can see a Holy God or Heaven.

Clean means to be free from dirt; stains or impurities, unsoiled. Free from foreign matter, unadulterated, without imperfection or blemishes, regular, perfect. Free from clumsiness, clever, deft, adroit. Without restrictions or encumbrances, entire, thorough, complete. Morally pure, sinless, honest and fair.

House is a dwelling place, a place of abode (that means something or someone lives there) a residence. A building used for shelter or storage. God dwells within us and our body is a house, a temple. God has given us a special function that we are to perform here on earth. Our body is a house that need repair sometime. Sometime we have things in there that need to be cleansed out. Our cleanser is the Word of God.
We have to first clean our own house before we can clean someone else’s. If you are keeping your own body clean from impurities, it’s a big enough job, not to worry about someone else. Clean up your own house. If your house is starting to smell, it’s go something wrong in it, and it needs a deodorizer. If your body is starting to smell, it’s not clean and it needs soap and water. We need to do what it takes to take care of what is needed naturally and spiritually for the upkeep of what God has entrusted in your care to be stewards over.

This cleaning starts on the inside first. You would not start cleaning up your house and go to the yard to make up your bed. You would start on the inside of the house. Clean up your inner man and the outside will line up. Too many times we worry about the wrong things. We wouldn’t put make up on a dirty face. We wouldn’t or shouldn’t put clean undergarments on a dirty body. Just as the body needs a bath everyday, our spiritual body needs the word.

Our day actually should start first with the reading of the Word and prayer. We need to first see what God is saying, then pray to him to help us to keep the word he has just blessed us with. We need to cleave to the Word for dear life. Cleave can mean to adhere, cling or stick fast. To be faithful, Romans 12:9 says to cleave to that which is good. Then it could mean the opposite. To split or separate, as with an ax: to make or accomplish as if by cutting. To pierce or penetrate, to make one’s way, pass. Don’t separate yourself from the Word, Prayer, Fasting, Bible Study, Church Services and so on. All these things is nourishment for the most important part of us, you and I, our souls.

Where our soul will spend eternity should be first and foremost in our lives. Mankind is much happier people when our soul and spirit is being edified. How can we be a guide or lead someone else to Christ if we ourselves is messed up. We do not know what we are here for. We will be leading the blind and we are blind, both of us will fall in a ditch. We cannot show anybody the way, when we do not know the way ourselves. Which way will we direct them if not to Christ? What kind of advice can we give them if we do not understand what they are going through and if we lack teaching in the area. Life becomes a strain to us and we keep the other person looking at themselves and their faults because we do not admit that we do not know, so we alter the relationship and only allow certain points to evolve out of it where we are in control. We will devour everything that causes us to be stressed.

They are full of extortion (using their position or power to get something that they are not entitled to). They coerce or intimidate the people. Their hearts is evil excessively. Their evil has rotted in them to the bones. They are dead men and women walking, yet they are convinced that they have it going on.



Inside is the inner or interior part, the middle part, away from the edge. The part you do not see with the natural eye.

Outside is the part or parts that face out that anyone can see with the natural eye.

Do not appear to men to be something on the outside and your inside do not line up with what you are suppose to be.

A tithe or tenth of whatever was produced was by the Mosiac Law to be given for the use of the Priest and Levites according to Leviticus 27:30, and all the tithe of the land whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord’s, it is holy unto the Lord. Several species of mint grew in Palestine, Anise and Cummin. They were careful to keep the law because they were told that if a man defrauded on the tithe that he also owed an additional fifth. The tithe comprised of 10% of all the produce in that time or the increase and it was regarded as the offering due from the people.

Leviticus points out that holiness is more than a matter of divine call and correct ritual. It actually requires the total consecration of a man’s life to God’s service. It involves giving one’s self, one’s family and all of ones possessions to God. If God cannot trust us with money, our body, our tithe, our first fruit of service to keep it clean and holy, then we need to reevaluate our walk with him.

Holiness unto the Lord is not just giving your all back to God in your tithe, your life is a lifestyle of holiness. Leviticus 11:44-45 says, For I am the Lord your God; ye shall therefore sanctify yourself, and ye shall be holy, for I am holy; neither shall ye defile yourselves with any manner of creeping things that creeps upon the earth. For I am the Lord that brought you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God; ye shall therefore be holy for I am holy. You shall sanctify yourself, clean up your life and put away everything that you know is not like God.

Then you must follow after peace with all men, for we cannot get to Heaven without it. Hebrews 12:14 say, follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. People in the church today fight in church, cuss each other out in church, wants to tell the Pastor what to preach and what not to preach, and they not only have no regard for each other, they have no regard for God. They have no reverence to anything. Praise is almost a thing of the past. Prayer is taught and followed by many, the Holy Ghost is now a household word with no revelation of who God really is and get the money or get out is the attitude of the times. People has really gone so far away from God and they still think that they are on there way to Heaven.

I serve you notice today that I Peter 1:15 says, but as he which hath called you is Holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation, you can not go to Heaven unless you get first things first in your life. This is why you need Jesus to make you.

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