There’s just no room in my house for junk anymore….

So at the start of this summer, I was determined to give up a lot of my old stuff…

We, (meaning my son, of course!  Ha!  Without his help, we can do nothing!) had to cart it all out…

Trash (STUFF!) we didn’t need…

And…Have a Garage Sale…UGH!!!

It was hard work…It was hot and humid…We had to force ourselves to part with some of the things…They were no longer serving a useful purpose to us…It was time to get rid of them….But it was exhausting!  Whew!

Apparently, in the ten years we’ve lived in FL, we’ve had no will-power over our constant accumulation of STUFF!!  Seems we couldn’t resist buying and hoarding things to decorate our new home…

But, truthfully, we brought most of our excess stuff  here from our life in NJ, and didn’t realize we didn’t need them in our new life…

Me, in particular!

Long-sleeve dresses, pants, boots, winter coats, gloves, hats, scarves…and on and on…

And also, clothes my son no longer wore…

Tons of junk in the attic…

We had just hung on to them for no good reason…

Eventually, our treasures from NJ, became our trash here in FL…

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  Matthew 6:21   NIV

So, after I completed my Minister’s courses in March last year, after my permanent substituting job was over in mid-April, after my son’s graduation from college at the end of April, after we spent quality time with my husband’s cousins while they were visiting, after our vacation at the beach, after I completed my courses to renew my FL Teaching Certificate, and after I purged and cleaned my house…

I decided we needed to have a garage sale!!

I called it “Trash Day!”

We looked through cabinets, in drawers, in boxes, on shelves, or through things hanging in closets…things too small, too large, too ugly, too whatever!  We sorted and hunted for unused stuff in every nook and canny of our house:  Kitchen, family room, dining room, bedrooms, bathrooms, den, lanai, garage, attic, and then outside…

For stuff that needed to go elsewhere…

Our trash!

I was adamant that NOTHING we put in the garage sale was going to come back into this house!!!  Anything left was going to go to Goodwill!

Yipee!!  Everything’s gone!!  My house is in order…I don’t miss any of  it…I don’t even remember now what I had.  There was so much…and as we were pulling it all out of its hiding places, all of it landed on our dining room table for a few days ’til the garage sale started…

It was such a huge pile…

That looking at all that junk in one place made me sick!!

After we come to Jesus…

After we’re filled with God’s Holy Spirit…

He takes the trash out…

It’s like the Holy Spirit says, “Oh look, they want to serve Jesus…It’s time to help them clean house!”

We can’t try to clean it out ourselves…

We need His help…Without God we can do nothing!!

He takes away the desire to bring all that trash back into our “house'”again…

The stuff from our old life, that we don’t need in our new life anymore!!

When we’re filled daily to over-flowing, we have more power to resist the enemy’s temptations to accumulate  junk in our lives…

We’ll know we’re due for a refilling of the Holy Spirit, when we can’t seem to get rid of the trash…

When we hoard it…

When it builds up and chokes us…

It’s piled so high, it makes us sick…

It separates us from God…

The reason for each of us individually to have a very real and personal relationship with Jesus Christ is that we need to hear directly from Him concerning those things that are trash in our lives…

Those things that are obstacles to the abundant life He has planned for us…

Obstacles, separating us from our Father…

For instance…I like sugar, but it makes my blood sugar level go up so high that I get very disoriented.  My body is personally telling ME,  not to eat sugary foods.  You can tell me to stop all you want, but until I personally feel it confirmed in my body, I won’t listen to you.

Because it’s something I love…

I don’t want to give it up!

I can choose not to listen to my body, but my health will suffer…

Trash in our lives is like that…Only God’s Holy Spirit can make us desire to give it up…

So, when we ask Jesus to take control of our life…

That gives the Holy Spirit permission to help us…

Give it up!

Cart it out!

Sin is trash we don’t need!

Trusted spiritual leaders can confirm truths to us…But, only the Holy Spirit can convict us and convince us…

We need to hear from God personally about when it’s “Trash Day” at our house, and in our hearts!

Obey…

Take it out…

Of our lives forever…

Let it all go!

We can choose not to listen, but our spiritual condition will suffer…

Our relationship with God will suffer…

“But when He, the Spirit of Truth, comes, He will guide you into all Truth. He will not speak on His own; He will speak only what He hears, and He will tell you what is yet to come.” John 16:13   NIV

“There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.”  Proverbs 14:12   NIV

Give it up!

It’s “Trash Day!”

What do we have to “trash?”

Things from our “old life” that take up too much of our time?

Replace them with time to go to the gym…

Or, to go to a Bible study…

God stretches us out of our comfort zones…

It feels uncomfortable…

Sometimes it’s exhausting!

It’s just like when I go to my chiropractor and get aligned…

My back hurts the next day…

It’s not used to being aligned correctly…

We must sort the things in our lives carefully…

We can’t give up real treasures…The things of real value…The things for eternity…

We’ll end up regretting it…

The Joy of the Lord is our strength…

Keep that Joy…

The Holy Spirit convinces us of the things that need to stay…

Our relationship with Jesus…

The eternal value our relationships with family, friends, co-workers, even our beloved pets…

Things that bring Joy…

But, the trash needs to go…

What do you need the Holy Spirit to trash in your life?