I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleans you.

Ezekiel 36:25

 

When we wash our cars, regardless of how deluxe the program that we select, there is one inevitability, the car will get dirty again, and this will usually happen within the first few blocks that we drive. Take that morning shower, and guess what, you’ll need another one shortly; do the laundry, wash the kitchen floor, and run the dishwasher and the result is always the same, more opportunity to clean up the messes that are a part of simply living. It seems that there are too many times when my internal life is like this also.

 

Although, in Christ, we have the answer to the totality of sin that separates us from God and from living in his presence, we still live inside of a body that was conceived and that grew and developed under the influence of that old sin infused nature. The more that we try to cleans ourselves and to wash away the filth and the grime of living in this world with our legacy of defiant egocentricity, the more frustrated we become, for when we work so hard at self purification, we are inevitably reusing the same water; so, it is like taking a bath every day without draining the tub. We may get just as wet each time, but eventually we are simply layering old dirt on top of today’s.

 

God brings us clean water from His spring which is the only source of truly pure goodness, and He provides the sort of cleansing that gets deep into our hearts and our minds and that penetrates into the dark crevices of our greatest needs and rinses away our most tightly held fears. All that the Lord asks from us is that we continually look to Him for our cleansing and that we open our hearts to the searching of His Spirit. As we allow ourselves to be showered in the blessing of His grace, the Lord lifts the weight of carrying the energy draining and life depleting burden of our former lives, and He frees us to experience His love and joy more fully.