Last week we finally stayed home long enough to clean house. It's been a crazy summer and life is finally settling back into routine. In preparation for my nephews' yearly week-long visit, we gave the house a thorough cleaning. I was so proud of what my husband and I had accomplished! Furniture polished, not just dusted off. Bathrooms scoured and disinfected. Laundry clean, folded and put away. Beds changed. Floors swept, mopped, and/or vacuumed. All in the same day! Yes, it was a total feeling of serenity and satisfaction that I had after a long day of hard work.
Then it happened. Someone dripped water on the floor. Not a tragedy, really. Until after I bent to wipe it up. I grabbed a paper towel and quickly swiped up the spill. That's when I saw it. The floor I thought had been so spotlessly clean just hours before left my white paper towel dark and dirty. How can this be?! I wonder, do I need one of those things they advertise on TV that works better than a mop? Maybe I need to do like my mom and my friend Debbie and just get on my hands and knees with a cloth to mop my floors. Something different has to happen. I can't just pretend to have a clean house!
I thought about how this relates to my life with Christ. He has promised to wash me clean. Whiter than snow. Yet I walk around grey and dingy and covered with a film that clings no matter how unwanted. It serves as a barrier between me and my God. It hinders intimacy with the One who knows me completely. Sin.
Proverbs 20:9 - Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin? Oh, but how we try. We make so many excuses to try to make our sin OK. We make up names like Little White Lie. We rationalize that someone deserves our wrath. We consider ourselves above the norm. We even tell ourselves no one will ever know. Frankly, we can't make our own hearts clean. We must bow before the Holy God and submit to His cleansing. Jesus shed his blood for that very purpose.
When we kneel before the Lord and ask for his cleansing and forgiveness, he gives it freely and completely. Holding nothing back, he casts our sin as far as the east is from the west. He buries those horrible things in the depths of the sea. He purifies us and creates us anew. So, why don't we live that way? Why do we live like we have a dirty film covering us? I believe that it is because of the comfort we have in our sin. Change is hard.
In Psalm 51 David, after his sin of adultery with Bathsheba, bows at the feet of his Lord and asks, "Purge me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Make me hear joy and gladness, that the bones You have broken may rejoice. Hide Your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me." David wanted to be restored to the pure relationship he had with God. His sin had damaged that relationship. His sin had left a film of filth covering him, and he begged God to wash it away.
Are you willing? Do you even want to be clean, really clean? Are you tired of pretending?
I love to travel to Haiti. Since my first trip until now, I go whenever the opportunity presents itself. It's not an easy trip. The place we go is in the city. Concrete and dust are everywhere. There is not a blade of grass at the school where we stay. We sleep on air mattresses on the floor with no air conditioning. We sweat a LOT. My bath consists of a bucket of water which I pour over my head. It feels so good on a hot afternoon to pour that cold water over my head! BUT.
You never dry off because of the humidity. When you put your clothes on they stick to you. When you walk across the courtyard to return to your quarters, the dust of the ground coats your feet and legs. Though you have washed, you are never really clean. You can't escape the dust. Think of that dust as the sin we don't want to really let go of.
Do you have that thing in your life that, even though you ask God to forgive and purify you, you won't completely let go and allow Him to remove it from your life? Do you get up off your knees and walk back down the path once again allowing the filth to cover you? Do you take so much comfort in the film of filth that it is ok with you to just go on pretending that everything it OK?
Revelation 1:5 says Jesus loved us and wash us from our sins in His own blood. Here's my conclusion. Just like my mom and my friend Debbie get on their hands and knees to mop their floors to a pristine cleanliness, we have to get on our hands and knees before the Lord God Almighty. First John 1:9 says that if we confess our sins Jesus is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Proverbs 16:2 All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the spirit. Will you allow the Lord to weigh your spirit today? It's time we quit justifying our sin and calling it pure. It's time we lived out who God has created us to be. Women (and men) in love with the creator of the universe, cleansed by the blood of Christ, spreading that love with the world.
