“I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions, for My own sake, and remembers your sins no more.” Is 43:25
What a refreshing promise! When Jesus becomes our Lord and Savior, so great is His love for those of us who fear Him, that He removed our transgressions from us as far as the east is from the west. Ps. 103:11-12 How amazing is this?
When God looks at us He sees us without blemish or defect, absolutely perfect. But if you are anything like we Cleary’s, this is a difficult truth to grasp. Why? Because we each know what we were thinking just 2 minutes ago, and ‘it wasn’t all that holy’!
So what’s truly up? Why do we feel so dirty when God tells us that we are now spotless in His eyes? Well, we believe that part of the reason is because we still carry “stink” around with us. And sometimes, amidst this sanctification process, we just can not see beyond this stink (and we don’t understand how God can either.) Allow us this analogy:
Friday night Shaun took our little dog out for her nightly pee ~~~ and she promptly ran over and tried to smell the butt of a not-so-nice skunk. It was late, so our eldest son did us a huge favor and washed/blow dried the dog, and then locked her in the garage for the night. (As you know, skunk smell doesn’t go away easily and he didn’t want to let her stink up the whole house.) Unfortunately our younger son did NOT get the memo.
Our dear Conner came in late, heard the dog crying in the garage, and his heart strings got the better of his brains. Discovering her stink, and then deducing that it would not be wise to let her in the house, he did us a “favor” and put her in mom’s car for the night…Oh dear, poor mom’s car…but the story gets better.
Saturday, Betsy gets her handbag out of the skunk-staked car, and drove with the family in Shaun’s sweet smellin’ truck to the funeral of a dear family friend. The service was standing room only, and quite touching. When Betsy opened the bag to get a tissue, out of the depths within, a most pungent smell arose and fanned out to all who were seated within a 5ft. radius (no joke). Heads turned towards Betsy, and eyes teared up as each must have thought, “Yeah, sure it’s coming from the PURSE………that’s a ripe one, girlfriend.” (I’m exaggerating a tad at this point, ~~ but not much.)
You see, even though our dear Kassi had been 1) thoroughly washed, 2) was truly sorry for her behavior, and 3) promised that she would never do it again, our sweet dog still carried the consequences from her misguided action in her fur. And further, the consequences of her impulsive recklessness spilled over on to those nearest to her, just like with us when we sin…Our stink affects those around us.
Thankfully, this is as far as this little analogy goes…because with us humans, God is talking about so much more that our physical realm here on this earth. He sees us through the eternal lenses of His Son’s blood, as Jesus Himself intercedes on our behalf. We truly are pure before His eyes… past, present, and future transgressions are all covered over by Jesus’ supreme sacrifice! The only thing we have to do is to accept His sacrificial gift, and then diligently chose to seek and to follow Him all the days of our lives (the sanctification process).
So what do you say…let’s allow God full control of our lives. Marriages will soar, relationships will be freed up, peace, and joy and incomprehensible love will reign in our hearts and lives, when we chose to avail ourselves wholeheartedly to Him!
God bless you!
Shaun and Betsy
