Wednesday, June 29, 2016

            So how does a retired man know when he is on vacation? I suppose the best punchline that I can come up with is that he is still doing as he pleases, but only in a different spot.

            But there is a lot of work to get ready for a vacation. For example, I cleaned the inside of the car today. I cleaned out the little slips of paper that accumulate, I vacuumed the floor mats, I cleaned all the vinyl, I cleaned the dashboard, I cleaned the inside of the windows, I cleaned out the back. I stuck in one of the little air fresheners you clip to an air vent. I am ready to go.

            “Cleanliness is next to Godliness.” My Mom used to say that a lot. Usually when she was making sure I had washed behind my ears or had washed my neck or my hands after playing outside all day.  And clean underwear was a must. “What if you were in accident and had to go the hospital? What would people think?”

Some people just might argue that that old adage is in the Bible, but I can’t find it in that exact form although there is a lot on what was deemed to be clean and what was deemed to be unclean.

In the New Testament the Pharisees are pictured as men who had a very strict code of what was clean and unclean. There were lots of things that made a person unclean and which didn’t meet their rigid standards. Not that they always practiced what they preached and Jesus called them out on the matter. “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence,” (Matthew 23:25). They needed to clean up their act!

We have all known a few Christians like that – seriously pious, religiously rigid people who have their check lists and God help you if you haven’t washed behind your virtuous ears.

But let’s go back to the idea of what makes for godliness. If not cleanliness, then what? “Godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come…” (1 Timothy4:8).  The writer continues to make the point: “But godliness with contentment is great gain,” (1 Timothy 6:6).

As for a few specifics, 1 Peter is helpful. “Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God… So don't lose a minute in building on what you've been given, complementing your basic faith with good character, spiritual understanding, alert discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder, warm friendliness, and generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing the others. With these qualities active and growing in your lives, no grass will grow under your feet, no day will pass without its reward as you mature in your experience of our Master Jesus,” (1 Peter 1: 3, 5-8, The Message).

Wouldn’t your mother be proud?

Dale

p.s.  My blog will return on August 3.