What Can Wash Away My Sin?
I remember as a young adult, the accomplishment I felt in being able to cook and clean, and basically keep myself alive, all by myself. I had moved to the other end of the state to attend university and didn’t even consider that I should call my mother to let her know I got there alive and well. I reveled in my self-sufficiency and quickly I spiraled into a lifestyle where the more I searched, the more I got lost.
I remember one time where the consequences of my life choices had left a drink stain on my favourite nightclubbing dress. A soak in some pre-wash detergent, pop that little number in the wash and it turned out looking as good as new! Well done, me!
That is, until the next time I wore my dress to the nightclub and the black lights revealed a huge, unsightly, fluorescent, previously invisible stain on my cute dress. Not so cute. All could see that something had gone very wrong.
Fast forward a few decades and I had come to know Jesus, I had submitted my life to him, he had healed my broken heart, and I was given the gift of making much healthier choices in my life. He truly had put my previous sins as far as the east is from the west. My spiritual dress was now looking more like robes of shining white. My big, obvious sins had been surrendered and, praise God, washed away.
Unfortunately, over time my prayer life was no longer a place of desperate reliance on Him. It had withered to a cursory prayer of grace before meals. My fervent study of the Bible was lost in a busy schedule and was squeezed down to irregular reading of a short devotional at breakfast (if only the kids weren’t fighting). Giving of my time and resources was now bound up in a tight budget and increasing demands of a growing family. I felt the need to clutch more tightly at what was mine and worried about how I could provide more by my own efforts. My patience and grace with my family was no longer fed from connection to the Holy Spirit but being (mis)led by my social media feed.
Without realising it, I was slowly creeping back to a life of self-sufficiency rather than a sufficiency in God. On the outside I looked like a ‘good Christian’. However, I knew that there were stains that God could see. The ‘black light’ of his truth revealed that something was very wrong.
How could I remove the stains? How could I become more “good”? Like laundry, there were some things I could do to make the situation better but there was always more laundry to do – always more shortcomings than I could wash away on my own.
One way to deal with hidden or persistent sin is to just ignore it. People may not really notice, right? But again, like laundry, your stink is eventually going to give you away. Your impatience. Your lack of love. Your holding back on sharing good things. Your blind eye towards injustice. Your indifference. That look of disdain. Forgetting to follow God and making your own plans. They may seem insignificant but their aroma reveals you may be wearing some dirty undergarments.
Tony Payne defines sin as not just rule-breaking, which looks at just the symptoms and not the disease, but that sin in Biblical terms can be summed up as “We all reject God as our ruler by running our own lives our own way. By rebelling against God’s way, we damage ourselves, each other and the world.”
By the grace of God, I was reminded and encouraged that there is a way to deal with the stubborn stains of sin. Even the subtle issues of “running our own lives our own way”. How? Through the cleansing blood of Jesus. Cleansing BLOOD? Blood does NOT make things clean! Have you ever gotten blood in fabric? It is very hard to get out! God even told the Israelites that “if some of [the animal offered for their sin’s] blood sprinkles on a garment, wash where it was sprinkled in a sacred place.” (cf. Leviticus 6:27) How then can the blood of Jesus make you clean?
Let me take you back to the Old Testament. A few weeks ago in Kids Church, we looked at the two goats offered as a special, annual sacrifice for sins by the Israelite people on the Day of Atonement (cf. Leviticus 16). One goat was to carry the sins of the camp of Israel far out into the wilderness, never to return (you may remember this guy as the “scapegoat”). The other goat was sacrificed and its blood was put in several places around the Tabernacle, to cleanse them. The purpose was to clean up what the other, regular sin offerings couldn’t cleanse – the deep and persistent sin. The two goats, together, resulted in the sins being taken far away and a life paid for cleansing of the sins so that the people could experience “at-one-ment” with God.
Hebrews says that Jesus was the better sacrifice (cf. Hebrews 9:12-14). His sacrificed life that once-and-for-all paid for sins, the one that takes the sins so far away that even God chooses not to remember them. Jesus is also the Light of God (cf. John 8:12). The Holy Spirit acts like that black light and helps us see our hidden sin and Jesus is like the light that sterilises. Jesus is the only one that can wash us from the inside-out.
Just as regular bathing is necessary for my exterior, so is regular time spent in the Light. Just as dirt gets on my exterior from walking through this world, so does my cleansed heart become dirty again. I look forward to the day when all sin will be removed from the Earth (Rev 21:4) but in the meantime, “If we confess our sins, [God] is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify [clean] us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9). I encourage you, if you have areas in your life where you are running your own life your own way and seeing the damage, please confess to God – he is faithful and just and will forgive. I also strongly encourage sharing with a fellow believer who is mature in the Word. There is HOPE.
“What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
O precious is the flow
that makes me white as snow;
no other fount I know;
nothing but the blood of Jesus.”
Robert Lowry, 1876
Louise Toews
