Decorations and Cockroaches

When Jason and I were first married, we lived in a pretty interesting little apartment. I was fresh out of college and he was halfway through his Master's program. We both worked restaurant jobs, so our apartment certainly wasn't the latest and greatest. I think you could see the entire apartment from any given place in any room. There was a bedroom, a bathroom, a living room and a galley kitchen. Things were pretty cozy. I'm pretty sure all of our furniture and decorations were from a thrift store, except for our couch. That beauty we picked up off the street. When the college kids left for the summer, they threw out this broken love seat and we carried (yes, carried) it down the street to our apartment. We couldn't fit a real couch in our apartment, so we settled for that gem, fixed it up and called it good.
After a year of fantastic memories in that tiny apartment, Jason officially joined the Army and we set off on another adventure, this time to Missouri. There we lived in the basement of an elderly woman's home. It was probably about twice the size of our old apartment, but quite a bit dirtier. We were there only a few months and then headed to Louisiana where we rented an actual house. Recently, we moved on the Army post, and have a three bedroom townhouse. It feels like a mansion. 
As I have been trying to decorate and fill this house, I've realized that we've never actually had nice decorations. Everything has always come from a thrift store. Now that our school bills are paid and we are officially debt free, I asked Jason if I could spend a little extra on decorating and he agreed. Though most that I bought was on sale, extra cheap, or yes, still from a thrift store, our house certainly looks quite a bit nicer. Last night, I hung the final picture while Ellsey was sleeping and patted myself on the back. I was pretty happy with how things turned out. As I walked up to my room and meandered into the bathroom to get ready for bed, I saw it. I'm impressed I didn't scream and wake the neighborhood. Crawling on the floor was the biggest cockroach I've ever seen. After I killed it and tried to calm myself down enough to sleep (which obviously didn't happen), I got frustrated. Here I spent all this time making my house look nice, when it had cockroaches inside it.
As I fumed and grumbled, I began to think about how similar this is to something Jesus said to the Pharisees. In Matthew 23:27, Jesus says, "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tomes, beautiful on the outside but on the inside you are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean!" The Pharisees were supposed to be the good guys. They were the religious leaders, they taught about the law of God, yet throughout the gospels, we consistently see how they've messed up. you see, they spent so much time working on how they appeared to people and to the world, that they forgot to look at the condition of their hearts. They forgot the reason to obey the law is out of love and respect to a God who first made a covenant with them. They forgot that God looks at the heart, rather than the outward appearance that man looks to (1 Samuel 16:7). In my house, I worked and worked to make it look great, but didn't think about what could be lurking behind the walls and in the pipes of the house. Sure, it's cute, but if the structure is infested with creepy crawlies, the looks soon won't matter.
This is a much needed reminder to Christians today, myself included. We want to wear the happy smile and look put together. We serve, but all the while grumble and grumble. We cling to rules and regulations, not out of love for a Father who saved us by sending his only Son, but out of a desire to look better than our neighbors. We live lives of comparative religion with our peers rather than complete surrender to our Lord. My friends, this is so broken and wrong. What I long for is for Christians to get real. With ourselves and others. So often, we start well. When Jason and I started out, I was simply happy to have a place to live, who cared about the decorations? When we start out as Christians, we have usually come to that place of total surrender where we know we can do nothing without Christ. However, as we move and grow and God begins to create us more each day into the person he truly intends us to be, we tend forget our most basic need: him. We try to take over, forgetting that only he can make us clean and pure. Only he can clean the cockroaches out of our hearts. The most we can do on our own is look good, and that is fragile; but God, through our complete surrender and devotion can work in us and make us good, which is eternal.
For all you non-Christians out there, I am sorry for the times you have faced myself or another Christian who made you feel insignificant or dirty by their attitudes and words. The truth is, we were just as dirty as you, but we have been cleaned by the grace of Jesus. Sometimes, we just forget it. And to all the Christians out there, look at the condition of your heart. Do you serve out of joy and love from the love you first received when you were filthy as can be? Do you look on others with love and mercy, the same way Christ looks on you? Or is your heart full of cockroaches? Call the Exterminator, he is waiting for the call and isn't afraid of your bugs.