"MINE!"

In a series of sermons given a few years ago, Doug Wilson uses the analogy of a clean house versus a dirty house to illustrate the importance of prompt and habitual confession of sin. The longer one waits to deal with a messy house, the more difficult and tiresome the task of cleaning the house becomes. But for the person who tidies often, confronts the mess, and moves on with his day, the job is far less overwhelming. Both homes need to be cleaned, just like the hearts of the people who take care of these homes. But one person procrastinates, offers excuses, and lazes about. The difference when it comes to confession of sin is a matter of length of time--we ought to confess sin promptly and often to avoid having bedraggled hearts heavy with sin.

Imagine that same home, but only one room (let's say the living room, since it's frequented most often) stays immaculate. Not one picture frame is out of place. The hardwood floors shine. Dust is nowhere to be found. Wow, you might think. This person's really got his act together. But walk upstairs and imagine there's what could be a certified case of "Hoarder's Disease" (there's an official help group for them now, you know). Spider webs crawl up the corners of every room, cups half full of some questionable liquid litter the furniture, and the shower has turned that lovely pink color of mildew. Something is clearly not right with this picture, and it's not just that you're uncomfortable that your house does indeed look like this sometimes. There's an inconsistency here.

If you haven't caught on quite yet, my point is that holiness applies everywhere. It isn't good enough to claim saving faith in the big places, the places that are most visible to outsiders. It isn't good enough to wish  you could keep your whole house in order but fail miserably at it all the time. In the same way, Christ requires us to think and behave Biblically about everything. Holiness requires absolute, sweeping submission to God everywhere. In the corners. Under the bed. Along the baseboards. In the bedroom. When we hear a song on the radio. When we deal with a cheeky grocery store cashier. When we spend money frivolously.

This is what it means to adopt a Biblical worldview; we have to avoid the sin of believing worldview is just philosophy--it has feet and hands, and how we behave in every situation is affected by our worldview. This is what Christ meant when He commanded us to "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength" (Mark 12:30). Wisdom (versus knowledge) is the ability to apply Scripture to all those obscure situations about which Scripture isn't explicit. Just like every room of our houses ought to be generally clean (and again, the word generally can be interpreted in many ways), so every minute of our lives ought to be in submission to Christ.


At Free University's inaugural address in 1880, Abraham Kuyper uproariously proclaimed,

"There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ,

who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: 'Mine!'"

In our current postmodern world where worldview, even among believers, is fragmented and detached from everyday behavior, Kuyper's words make even more sense. Will we listen, and do?