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"Live Clean" Page 1  | 2 | 3
| 4 | 5 | |
Mike Slaughter  |
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James 4:7-8 7: Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. 8: Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you men of double mind. |
 Our
scripture is James 4. I said last week that I’m a good man. But I have
to work hard to be a good man. It is a whole lot easier for me to be
something less. It’s hard to keep clean. It was hard when I was a little
kid to keep clean, and it’s hard as a 49-year-old man to stay clean. I
have to do six hard things every day to make my life work. This week we
are talking about the fourth of these six. James, Chapter 4, verse seven:
"Submit yourselves
 therefore to God." Submit to God means to
submit to what you already believe, to do what you know. "Resist the
devil and he will flee from you." Evil’s goal is to tempt you to be
just a little less than good. Just a little less than honest. Just a
little less than loving. Just a little less than excellent. I have to
resist the tendency to coast in my life, in any of those areas. The third
part is, "Draw near to God; come near to God and God will come near
to you."Pure Hearts |
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| Lamentations 3:40-41 40: Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the LORD! 41: Let us lift up our hearts and hands to God in heaven: |
 We will
look at the fourth hard thing that I have to practice every day to make my
life work. "Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts,
you double minded." Carolyn has some pants at home, they’re a light
khaki color, and she calls them dirt magnets. You know the kind? We can go
to breakfast together and she’ll say, "Look, already I have
something on these dirt magnets!" Just walking through the garage and
brushing against the car a little bit - and all day long you’re just
picking up dirt. In the same way that we pick up dirt on our hands and on
our clothes, dirt collects throughout the day in our spirits. Dirt
collects and clings to our spirits. The Bible says to us, "Just as
you cleanse your hands, purify your hearts." |
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At some point today we all cleaned up. I have a daily routine. Every
morning I get up, I shave, I take a shower, and I brush my teeth. And I
don’t do it just occasionally. Thank God. Even on my day off. Because
dirty doesn’t feel good. Not only do I clean up daily, cleansing is
something I do throughout the day. I've noticed that I can start clean but
somehow I have the tendency, as I go through the day, to accumulate dirt.
I stopped on my way into the building, saw a few weeds by one of our
flowerbeds, and stopped to pull them. I came in and noticed my fingernails
were all black! I had dirt under my fingernails. Immediately I went to the
sink and washed my hands. The other night I went out in the yard on what
we call "poop patrol." If you have dogs you know what I’m
talking about. Carolyn called out and said I had a phone call. I went in
and as she handed me the phone I noticed I had dog remains on my hands. So
I washed my hands. You don’t eat before you wash. Health requires
continual cleansing. Don’t you hate it when you go into a restaurant and
you have a dirty fork? Not too long ago, I went into a restaurant at 6:00
in the morning to get coffee. I looked and there was lipstick on the cup!
It still grosses me out! We were telling gross out stories and Todd, our
director of media, says that one time he found a Band-Aid in his lasagna!
It was in his mouth! Dirty doesn’t feel good!