I Am Clean

 

Today the world celebrates the Passover, the day our Lord willingly became the propitiation for our sins. Let us keep in remembrance what happened that day; as the spotless lambs were being slaughtered for the sacrifice, THE SPOTLESS LAMB was crucified! (Revelation 13:8, "And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him (the beast), whose names are NOT written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.") Jesus came knowing His destiny was to die the horrible death of the cross, and yet He came! Why? Because His Holiness demands His wrath punish the wicked? The truth is His Holiness does demand the wicked are punished, but He came because His LOVE said, "I will take the punishment upon Myself so that those I created in My image (Holy and Blameless) can be washed clean of Sin and once again reflect My image. I will take the punishment upon Myself so that I can live INSIDE of them! I will take the punishment upon Myself so they will have the POWER to OVERCOME Death, Hell, and the Grave." 

Lately I've been in a place where I've felt as if I have failed God and my family. I haven't felt that I've been walking in the Power that I have through the Holy Ghost. I've been beat down, defeated, and depressed. Wednesday night at church we sang the song, "I Am Clean", and the words of it struck a serious chord with me.

"I see shattered, You see whole.

 I see broken, You see beautiful.

And You're helping me to believe.

You're restoring me piece by piece.

There's nothing too dirty, that You can't make worthy.

You wash me in mercy. I am clean.

What was dead, now lives again.

My heart's beating, beating inside my chest.

Oh, I'm coming alive with joy and destiny.

Cause You're restoring me piece by piece.

There's nothing too dirty that You can't make worthy.

You wash me in mercy. I am clean.

Washed in the blood of Your sacrifice. 

Your blood flowed red and made me white

My dirty rags are purified. I am clean."

As we sang that song, the words of it bored a hole in my heart, and memories of who I once was surged to the surface. As I looked at who I had once been, I realized that I HAD been WASHED in the blood of HIS sacrifice, and tears made their way down my cheeks. 

How easily we forget who we were and all He suffered so that we don't have to suffer for eternity. It's that simple. His LOVE IS more powerful than HIS wrath. His wrath will always punish sin, but His LOVE (wow, just think about it) His LOVE washed away the need for His wrath. How do I know this? Well, I have experienced His forgiveness. I've experienced His cleansing, and I have partaken of His Word, the Bread of Life. (James 1:21, "Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls." 1 Corinthians 11:24, "And when He had given thanks, He brake it (the bread), and said, Take, eat; this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.") We are supposed to consume the Word, and He is that Word that we consume. He is the bread broken for us. 

Once upon a time all I could see was what I deserved. I saw my eternal punishment because it is what I deserved. I had made a lot of mistakes. What? whoa...that's a really modern, non-offensive way of saying the truth! I had SINNED. There I said it. They weren't mistakes; they were sinful acts, and I KNEW it! I KNEW I didn't deserve forgiveness, and because I didn't deserve it, Satan convinced me that God was incapable of forgiving me. I was depressed before Satan got a hold of my mind and convinced me of that because of the sins I had committed and the condemnation I felt due to them, but once Satan got a hold of my mind, I was thrust into a deep well of depression that led me down the path to wanting to die to end my pain, and that eventually led to a moment when I nearly accomplished stopping the bombardment in my mind. God spared me that night, and that day before I made that attempt, He had a friend give me a Bible for my birthday! He KNEW what would happen to my mind that night, that it would break and I would snap...unable to take anymore pain, and He gave me the answer before I even got there. Me, I was stopped. Not everyone is. My cousin wasn't as fortunate as I was. No one stopped him, and now his pain has been passed on to all who loved him. Having seen suicide from both sides of the coin, I know the pain it inflicts on the survivors, but I also feel that those who angrily say it is a selfish act simply do NOT understand that in that moment, you simply can't "see" what your actions will do to others, you only FEEL the pain you're in, and you simply can't take it any longer. 

I didn't deserve God's forgiveness, so how could He forgive me? Those were my thoughts, and yet, He DID! How then? How did He do it? He didn't wash me because I said words. He didn't wash me because I went to an altar to pray. He didn't wash me because I asked to be baptized. He washed me because the "foolishness of preaching"  spoke truth to my heart, and I BELIEVED in Him---Jesus, the Creator, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End, the Everlasting Father, the One True God---and His sacrifice! (1 Corinthians 1:21, "For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know Him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.") I believed He shed His blood to wash away my sin. I believed He rose from the dead, and that the same Spirit that raised Him from the dead could live in me if I repented and was baptized for the remission of my sins. That's the Word. I had to be born again by the Spirit of God that would quicken my mortal body! 

I left church Wednesday night knowing that God had a reason when He told the Israelites to place Stones of Remembrance from the Jordan in the Promised land. Those stones weren't on the other side of the river where they had come from. They were in the Promised land. A place to go and remember where they had once been but were no longer. We NEED to stop, go to the stones of Remembrance of who were once were and REMEMBER what He did for us, and renew within us that gratefulness for what He did, and walk in the newness of being "clean."

Remembering the person you were who is now dead ISN'T wrong. Reviving the dead man is what is wrong. Living day in and day out in the guilt of who you were is wrong. Acting as if you weren't that "big" of a sinner is wrong. Not realizing the depth of the wickedness of your heart...no matter how "clean" and "sinless" you kept YOURSELF...that is wrong. (Romans 3:23, "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." Jeremiah 17:9, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?") It doesn't matter if you have always had a strong moral compass and refused to drink, smoke, chew, cuss or sleep around. Have you ever been angry? Have you ever judged someone? Have you ever gossiped? Have you ever made fun of someone? or maybe you simply compare yourself to others and thanked God that you never did this or that...well, your heart was just as black as those who committed outward sins, and that is what is wrong. To simply REMEMBER where God brought you from, that is something we NEED! 

Washed in the blood of HIS sacrifice. His blood flowed red and made ME white. My dirty rage are PURIFIED. I AM CLEAN!

Be Blessed and Be Made Whole,

Pinky