Cleanliness Provokes Godliness

Last Friday, I attended a requiem service for a deceased uncle at Rubaga Cathedral, one of the oldest and majestic buildings in Uganda.

The gothic architecture existed peaceably and mingled superbly with a very clean compound and well trimmed meadows. The place was so neat that I felt it a sin to step on the grass. I had to ask around where the trash can was for my depleted yoghurt refuse.

Using that, the Holy Spirit taught me something. He said I felt bad littering because the place I was in discouraged it.

If the place was dirty, one would be compelled to litter.

If we are holy, and live so, people around us, when they come near us, are convicted to do the same. I remember an incident back in high school where some child almost pulled his tongue out for cussing the minute I passed by. My side eye felt like God’s judgement down his throat.

No wonder God hates the lukewarm church. You can’t be dirty in the morning and clean in the afternoon. The person who littered in the morning will still litter in the afternoon! And if you reprimand him or her, how will they feel if the following morning, after being punished, they find people littering freely!

The Holy Spirit being the clean one in us, makes us feel bad as well when we sin. And so, because we dwell with one another permanently, and He is more sovereign than us, we have to array our habits, pack our sub-ordinance and divorce our prostitution!

Notice I controlled myself because the place around cast eyes upon me. No wonder some people find themselves free from addictions, because the addictions found their way to the trash cans even before the recipients wondered where! The Spirit cast eyes on them.

The shoes fell off Moses’ feet because the ground was holy. That very holiness — not of our own effort — is what undresses our bad habits and wickedness and all anti-holy agents. Even disease! When the woman who bled for years touched Jesus’ hem, it realized she had stepped on the grounds that I had; and swiftly, the bleeding found its place in a trash can!

And the paradox is; though I thought it was the cleanliness that provoked my godliness, it is in fact the godliness (God being in us) that provokes cleanliness — the cleansing of every manner of leprosy in each one of us!

So I beg to revise the fact that it is not our efforts of cleanliness that will make us live ‘godly.’ It is God — light Himself — that arrives first and ‘be-s’ , then darkness dispels, never comprehending Him! Thus cleanliness in you and me.