Dirty fingernails and clean minds

Will Rogers once said, “ What the country needs is dirtier fingernails and cleaner minds.” It takes us getting dirty to get the dirt out of our lives. We must be willing to dig down real deep if we want to build up real high. Our goal is not to clear the sin out of our lives; it’s a part but not the whole. Our desire should be for God to fill our lives, because when God is in our lives, our minds, and our hearts there is no room for sin. All of the space is filled with the redeeming love of our savior. The thing about sin is it takes on a whole new shape and terror when there is a chance of it getting discovered. The longer you allow sin in your life the deeper it gets inside of you and the more it wraps its deceiving claws around you. Sin will try to fight you, but it does no good to fight fire with fire. The time to decide whether or not to get in the backseat with the girl or guy doesn’t start when you are in the car all alone together on that lonely hill that conveniently overlooks the whole city. It starts before you even get in the car. We can’t fight sin by wrestling with it and putting it into a headlock. There are also many people who will try to escape and run from temptation, only to end up falling more deeply into it. We cannot conquer sin just by running away from it either, but little by little by being patient and steadfastly seeking God and by declaring that this is not our battle it is the Lords. By the help of our Lord rather than our own ways, we will become over comers. We fight sin by allowing the God of the ages to infest our lives, and as we draw into Him. He will began to draw the sin out of us. The process is not to get right and then get God; the process is to get God so that we can get right. We must choose to lay it all down at the cross and repent. To decide that enough is enough we want to truly live for our Savior. Repentance is what happens when we realize what Christ has done. It’s us realigning our lives with this new realization. We must humble ourselves to the will of God in every temptation that we face, for in that He will carry us, and His might and power will be shown.