This past weekend, I decided that I had had enough with my car’s interior. To say that it needed detailed is exponentially understated. I just can’t even describe it. Simply put, it was disgusting. Wrappers everywhere, bags from McDonald’s and Chick-Fil-A with 6 month old pickles in them, dirty and random clothes, books. I had one pair of tennis shoes with horse stuff on them from a trip to the State Fair and the cattle and horse barns. I just didn’t want to deal with it, but I didn’t want to throw the shoes out! Worse still, the front seat was stained from where I had spilled coffee, ketchup, gravy and just about every other food one could imagine. And then of course there were french fries under the seats and down in the crevices of the seat cushions.
I got to the car wash and detail shop and the gentleman asked me what I wanted done to the exterior of the car – it was like he had blinders on! I almost laughed out loud (wasn't it obvious)!! “I’m not even worried about the outside!” I said. “But the inside needs the works! – anything and everything you can do to clean it up.”
He told me that I could come back in three hours to pick it up. I slipped inside the shop to pay my bill thinking in my mind “if only I hadn’t let it get this bad in the first place”.. But as I walked across the street to the mall to camp out and get something to eat (this time not out of a bag), I began to think about the unbelievable symbolism in my visit with the car wash people.
The Bible has some very important things to say about the condition we keep our soul in. First, it says in I Samuel 16:7(b) “for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." God looks on the inside, because outward appearance can be deceiving. We can be seemingly “clean” on the outside, and be dirty as a pig in slop on the inside. To the world, a person can be “a good man”, but have sin patterns that the Lord Jesus disdains. He might think that they are in private – that only he knows. But God knows us inside and out; through and through.
Jesus also spoke directly to this subject during one of his stronger admonitions (from Matthew 23:27): “"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.” Jesus is warning us here, no doubt. And then Jesus talks about being “double-minded”.
My car served as a great reminder to me of these truths. These are some of the lessons I have considered:
- I let it go to a point that it made me sick and depressed. If I had cleaned out the inside from time to time and just kept the trash out, things wouldn’t have gotten so out of control.
- There came a point when I realized things were so bad I couldn’t get it cleaned on my own; I was going to need help
- My car probably fooled a lot of people. On the outside, it looked like pretty much any other car. You had to really get up close and look around to see just how disgusting it was on the inside.
I want to encourage you – keep “short accounts” with God. Don’t stray far from Him. You don’t want to allow your insides to become so dirty that you’re headed for disaster and the need for radical intervention. On this note, God says in Hebrews “God disciplines those he loves.” We may fool a handful of people by keeping a neat and clean outside, while living like the devil when no one is around. On this note, Paul wrote to the Galatians: “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
I love you, my friend. But Jesus loved you before I did and he loves you deeper and better, too. Think about it: He (Jesus) laid his life and soul down to satisfy the Father’s blood sacrifice for sin. Receive Jesus today if you haven’t already. It’s time, isn’t it? And if you have a relationship with Christ, return to your first love. Ask God – as David said – to restore unto you the joy of His salvation!
God bless you today.
