As I said last week, keeping clutter under control seems to be a battle I’m constantly fighting. And most of us would agree that clutter can quickly make us feel overwhelmed and disorganized. But could there be spiritual clutter in our lives that creates a whole host of problems? Could it lead to a sense of hopelessness and lethargy and could it hinder our relationships with God?

While I’m sure it’s not an exhaustive list, I suggested eight things that I see as spiritual clutter. Today I’m going to talk about ways to rid yourself of that clutter.

8 Ways to Rid Yourself of Spiritual Clutter – Part 2

8 Kinds of Spiritual Clutter

Last week, I talked about each of the eight things in more detail and the reasons why they can be so damaging. If you missed that post, I would encourage you to go back and read it. But today we’ll focus on ridding ourselves of spiritual clutter.

Busyness

I don’t know anyone today who is not busy. And we should be busy about our Father’s business … to a point.

But we can get so busy doing … doing our means of making a living, doing parenting, doing social things, doing our household responsibilities, even doing ministry that we don’t do the most important thing.

We all know her story, but Martha was a good example:

³⁸Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. ³⁹And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. ⁴⁰But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” ⁴¹But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, ⁴²but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10.38-42 ESV).

Martha’s ministry of hospitality was a very important one. We are told repeatedly in Scripture to be hospitable (Rom. 12.13; Heb. 13.2; 1 Pet. 4.9).

The church is, even, commanded to take care of widows who have done certain things, one of which is showing hospitality (1 Tim. 5.9-10).

But whatever our calling in life, we will often find ourselves anxious about it, stressed by the workload, even resentful, if we neglect the most important thing. It’s the thing Mary understood and wanted more than anything else, sitting at the feet of Jesus. It seems that’s what happened to Martha.

Busyness can cause us to neglect that, as well as, our other God-given relationships. And it can feed into another item on this list, selfishness and self-focus. When we’re too busy, we can get a prideful view of ourselves and our own importance.

Getting Rid of Sinful Busyness

When it comes to sinful busyness, the answer is to prioritize in light of God’s Word.

Make a appointment with God and keep it. Spend time in prayer, bible reading, and meditation.
Make a list of your other responsibilities before God, including the relationships in your life.
Consider each one prayerfully.

There may be things that you need to stop doing, at least for a season. A pastor friend used to say, part of the Christian life involves not choosing between the good and the bad, as much as, choosing between the good and the best.

When it comes to sinful busyness, the answer is to prioritize in light of God’s Word. #God #quiettime #priorities #soulsurvival

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Procrastination

As I admitted last week, left to myself, I could easily become the queen of procrastination. I’ll do all kinds of other seemingly good things as I circle around the one thing I should focus on.

But Paul told the church at Ephesus:

¹⁵Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, ¹⁶making the best use of the time, because the days are evil (Eph. 5.15-16 ESV).

I meditated on that passage for several years and still pray it back to God regularly. What about you? Do you ever struggle with procrastination?

Getting Rid of Procrastination

Half the Battle with procrastination is getting started.

It may help to make a list of the steps required in your project or task. Write them out in order.
Take them one by one. Sometimes breaking a project down can make it seem more doable.
Get started on them as early as possible in the day.
If it’s a larger project, do something toward it.

Years ago, I saw a poster that said, “Eat a live toad every morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” The idea was, do the thing you dread first!

Laziness

The lazy person finds excuses not to do anything that’s difficult or undesireable. But laziness leads to nothing good.

Proverbs has a lot to say about laziness. It teaches us that laziness will lead to poverty (Prov. 10.4), that a lazy person is wasteful (Prov. 12.27, 19.24), and that she’ll crave things and not get them (Prov. 13.4). Laziness will keep us from loving God and others as we should. And Proverbs 12.4 says someone else will force a lazy person to do what she won’t do herself. That doesn’t sound good to me.

Getting Rid of Laziness

The lazy person must create new habits with God’s help.

Ephesians 4.22-24:

²²to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, ²³and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, ²⁴and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness (ESV).

Renew your mind by doing a study of the word lazy and its synonyms from Proverbs.
Pray and ask for God’s help to become the person He has created you to be.
Make yourself accountable to someone.
Make a daily to-do list. Start small with three or four items. And be faithful to do them unless providentially hindered.
Sign up to serve in some way at your church.
Once a week do something you don’t have to do for someone else. Help a widowed neighbor, babysit for a young mom, etc.

Selfishness & Self-Focus

2 Timothy 3 says this:

¹But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. ²For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, slanderers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, ³unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, ⁴treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, ⁵holding to a form of godliness although they have denied its power; avoid such people as these (NASB).

Notice that lovers of self is at the top of that list. Our culture has probably never been more self-focused than it is today. And Christians are not immune to it. But an unhealthy focus on self can be one of the most dangerous kinds of spiritual clutter.

And let’s be honest, we are all selfish at times. It’s something we need God’s grace to overcome.

Philippians 2 says:

³Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. ⁴Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

And selfishness and pride tend to go together. Paul told the Roman Christians:

³For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned (Rom. 12.3 ESV).

Getting Rid of Selfishness & Self-Focus

When we recognize that we are thinking and acting selfishly, we need to ask for God’s help to deliberately focus on the other person and his or her wants and needs.

Meditate on passages such as 1 Corinthians 13.4-7 and Philippians 2.3-5.
Be thankful. Thank those who serve you, however imperfect their service my be. Selfish people are often prideful and believe they deserve what they get and more.
Look for ways to prefer your spouse and other people instead of yourself. Suggest eating at their favorite restaurant or vacation spot, for example.
Practice putting yourself last. Take the smallest piece of pie. Leave the best parking space for someone else.
Don’t interrupt or act rudely.
Really listen when others talk to you. Resist the urge to be simply formulating your reply.

Unconfessed Sin

Last week, I talked about Genesis 3 where Adam and Eve ate the fruit they had been forbidden to eat. The text says that they knew they were naked. They realized they were vulnerable, exposed. They experienced guilt and shame for the first time and they tried to hide from God.

I pointed out that when we sin, we too, want to run and hide from God. Our own consciences condemn us and we’ll avoid spending time with God.

Sin, also, hurts our testimonies, ruins our relationships with others, and leads to more and more sin. And it can bring on God’s discipline (Gal. 6.7-10; Heb. 12.3-11).

It’s spiritual clutter of the worst kind.

Getting Rid of Unconfessed Sin

The answer to unconfessed sin is confession and repentance.

Go to God and confess your known sins (1 Jn. 1.9).
Ask God to search you and show you any sin you might be blinded to (Ps. 139.23-24).
Confess to other people, if necessary (Matt. 5.23-24).
Understand that genuine repentance is more than feeling sorry, it’s a change of mind that leads to a change in action (2 Cor. 7.8-11).
With God’s help seek to become a doer of the Word in every area (Jas. 1.22-25).
Make yourself accountable to someone.

Unforgivenss & Bitterness

Two sins that will clutter our spiritual lives in devastating ways are bitterness and unforgiveness. Hebrews 12 says:

¹⁴Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. ¹⁵See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled;

Bitterness doesn’t just clutter our hearts and lives, it will eventually defile others.

And in Matthew 6, Jesus said this:

¹⁴For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, ¹⁵but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

While as genuine believers, we won’t lose our salvation, neither will we receive the cleansing we need for our ongoing sins and struggles. In effect, we throw up roadblocks in our relationship with God.

Getting Rid of Unforgiveness & Bitterness

The way to get rid of bitterness and unforgiveness is to fully understand how much you have been forgiven.

Read and think deeply about Matthew 18.21-35.
Make a choice to forgive anyone who has hurt you.
Resist the urge to replay past hurts over and over.
Instead, meditate on God’s grace and forgiveness in your life.
If you need help, talk to a pastor or biblical counselor.

Wallowing

The flip side of unconfessed sin is wallowing in sin that we have confessed and repented of. It often leads to thoughts like, “I know God has forgiven me, but I can’t forgive myself.” What we are saying is, “I have a higher standard than God.”

We can, also, wallow when we seem to fall into the same sin over and over. We can be tempted to give up and lose hope that we will ever change.

Getting Rid of Wallowing

The answer is the gospel in its full scope.

Remember that Christ died for all our sins, past, present, and future.
No where in the bible does it say we must forgive ourselves. We need to accept God’s grace and forgiveness.
Meditate on Colossians 2.13-14.
Writer and teacher Elyse Fitzpatrick says in her book Comforts from the Cross, “It is for this that Christ died.” Remind yourself of that truth when you’re tempted to wallow.

Fear, Worry & Anxiety

Fear, worry, and anxiety can cause us to take our eyes off God as we focus on ourselves and our circumstances. They can take so much time, thought, and energy that we have little time to think about anything else.