Clean Your Closet!

Clean Your Closet!

1.18.2023

To have a close connection with the Lord in prayer, we need to clean our spiritual closet!

Matthew 6:6 (MSG)

Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.

It is a challenge if you have never been close to another person. So close that you reveal yourself completely.

For spiritual progress to occur, we must come heart to heart with God, and reveal to Him the things that hurt us, frustrate us, anger us, the things that make us feel insecure, the things that worry us, and the sins that regularly tempt us.

Tonight, I am going to give you an opportunity for some heart to heart time with God.

Here’s the biblical foundation for some good old fashioned heart searching:

Jeremiah 29:11-13 (NKJV)

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 13 And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.

2 Corinthians 5:10 (AMPC)

For we [believers will be called to account and] must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be repaid for what has been done in the body, whether good or bad [that is, each will be held responsible for his actions, purposes, goals, motives—the use or misuse of his time, opportunities and abilities].

Hebrews 4:13 (NKJV)

And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.

Hebrews 4:13 (NLT)

Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable.

Psalm 90:8 (AMPC)

Our iniquities, our secret heart and its sins [which we would so like to conceal even from ourselves], You have set in the [revealing] light of Your countenance.

Psalms 90:8 (TPT)

For all of our faults and flaws are in full view to you.

Everything we want to hide, you search out

and expose by the radiance of your face.

Philippians 4:6-7 (JB Phillips)

Don’t worry over anything whatever; tell God every detail of your needs in earnest and thankful prayer, and the peace of God which transcends human understanding, will keep constant guard over your hearts and minds as they rest in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7 (TPT)

Don’t be pulled in different directions or worried about a thing. Be saturated in prayer throughout each day, offering your faith-filled requests before God with overflowing gratitude. Tell him every detail of your life, 7 then God’s wonderful peace that transcends human understanding, will make the answers known to you through Jesus Christ.

Psalm 19:14 (NKJV)

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer.

Psalms 139:1-18 (TPT)

YOU KNOW ALL ABOUT ME

1 Lord, you know everything there is to know about me. (2) You perceive every movement of my heart and soul, and you understand my every thought before it even enters my mind.

(3–4) You are so intimately aware of me, Lord. You read my heart like an open book and you know all the words I’m about to speak before I even start a sentence! You know every step I will take before my journey even begins. (5) You’ve gone into my future to prepare the way,

and in kindness you follow behind me to spare me from the harm of my past. With your hand of love upon my life, you impart a blessing to me. (6) This is just too wonderful, deep, and incomprehensible! Your understanding of me brings me wonder and strength. (7) Where could I go from your Spirit? Where could I run and hide from your face? (8) If I go up to heaven, you’re there! If I go down to the realm of the dead, you’re there too! (9) If I fly with wings into the shining dawn, you’re there! If I fly into the radiant sunset, you’re there waiting! (10) Wherever I go, your hand will guide me; your strength will empower me. (11) It’s impossible to disappear from you or to ask the darkness to hide me, for your presence is everywhere, bringing light into my night. (12) There is no such thing as darkness with you. The night, to you, is as bright as the day; there’s no difference between the two. (13) You formed my innermost being, shaping my delicate inside and my intricate outside, and wove them all together in my mother’s womb. (14) I thank you, God, for making me so mysteriously complex! Everything you do is marvelously breathtaking. It simply amazes me to think about it! How thoroughly you know me, Lord! (15) You even formed every bone in my body when you created me in the secret place, carefully, skillfully shaping me from nothing to something. (16) You saw who you created me to be before I became me! Before I’d ever seen the light of day, the number of days you planned for me were already recorded in your book. (17–18) Every single moment you are thinking of me! How precious and wonderful to consider that you cherish me constantly in your every thought! O God, your desires toward me are more than the grains of sand on every shore! When I awake each morning, you’re still with me.

Psalms 139:23-24 (TPT)

God, I invite your searching gaze into my heart. Examine me through and through; find out everything that may be hidden within me. Put me to the test and sift through all my anxious cares. 24 See if there is any path of pain I’m walking on, and lead me back to your glorious, everlasting ways— the path that brings me back to you.