21 Days Cleaning Journey: My Heart Christ’s Home
Deuteronomy 16:1-4
Ephesians 3:17
There are many holidays in America, though all the holidays have special meaning, people often forget the meaning and they think holidays are days they don’t have to go to work or school. In Christian’s calendar, there are many important holidays (e.g., Easter, Christmas, Thanksgiving) that we celebrate. Easter is not only the day that we declared that Jesus was crucified and resurrected, but we also re-invite the resurrected Christ to our life again.
In Catholic churches, they prepare and celebrate Easter by practicing Lent and the 40-Day Lenten Fast. Lent already started on February 14 and we are late but we can do differently. There are similarities between the Passover and Easter. In the Old Testament, Passover is the day people from Israel sacrificed lambs to remember how they escaped and were delivered out of Egypt by the grace of God. Easter is the day we celebrate how Jesus delivered us from our sins, that is the reason why Jesus was referred to in the New Testament as the lamb of God.
There are special instructions they had to follow:
Deuteronomy 16:1-5, verse 3: this is the way that people of Israel were recommended to celebrate/prepare/remember the passover: they cannot eat leavened bread for 7 days and remove yeast from their territory.
Yeast is something you need to use to make bread, it is important and useful because we use it in our life. In Deuteronomy, God asked them not to use them for 7 days, because he wants them to remember that it is not yeast that they live by and for and yeast did not deliver them from the land of slaves but by the grace of God, and God has the control over their life. For 21 days, we refrain ourselves from doing or using something to remember that God is in control in our life.
PD encouraged everyone to not to eat leavened bread for 21 days. Let’s eat leavened bread for 21 days until we receive the resurrected Christ in our heart again.
Matthew 16:11-12: Jesus didn’t tell people to be aware or the leaven bread but the teaching of the Sadducees and Pharisees. What is that teaching? In Luke 12:1 it is hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is something that looks good on the outside but not the inside. The Sadducees and Pharisees look good on the outside (appearance) but their hearts are not at the right place. Jesus told the people to remove the hypocrisy, focus not on our doing but we need to work on what is in our heart.
1 Corinthians 5:6-7: we need to get rid of the yeast to experience Christ
There are 3 things we can do to prepare for this Easter:
Refrain ourselves from doing/using something to remember God has the control in our life for 21 days
We need to work on our heart
We need to clean out your heart
How can we do it? Let’s read the book: My Heart Christ’s Home
When we open the door for someone, we need to invite them to every room. After we open the door to invite Jesus in our heart, Ephesians 3:17, Christ makes his home in your heart. We want to invite Christ to dwell in our heart. The book talks about there are many rooms in our heart, and each room represents specific things. The author challenges us to see if Jesus will be comfortable to see what we see, read what we read, watch what we watch, eat what we desire. Are we comfortable to let Jesus do the same thing as we do? We need to clean the rooms and invite Jesus into all the rooms not as a guest but as the master.
How many rooms do we have in our heart? Where have we invited Jesus into? Then, think about what we should refrain ourselves from doing excessively and write down, and share with HC (e.g., food, social media, work, etc.)
Reflection Questions: (showing your 21 Days Cleaning Journey Card)
What do you want to refrain for 21 days?
What have you cleaned this week?
