Getting things clean

Ps 51:7 "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow."

Ezek 36:26-27 "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep my judgments and do them."

A good friend came over to our place earlier this week, and I helped him wash the house. He used the brush and soap, and I applied the water. It went a little faster than I expected, and the seven-year-old house looks almost new again. But the one things that amazed us was the number of times we'd have to go back over certain spots to finally get them clean. I mean, when we stood back as I sprayed, the wall looked nice. Then, when we stepped closer, we found spots that were missed, and spots that required a little more effort. There were a few places we worked on (shaded edges of the deck railing and the north side of the house) four and five times before we were satisfied.

The texts quoted above came to my mind as we kept going back to clean a little more. The Lord promises to cleanse our hearts (give us new motives and desires), and to give us the strength to walk in His ways. After all, our desire is to become like Jesus. But like my friend and me washing the house, it seems the Lord has to come back to certain spots and work on them a little more. I would suggest that there are at least two reasons this occurs.

First of all, we are creatures of habit. Unless we claim His power moment by moment in our new walk, the old habits will raise their ugly heads, and we'll need to go the Lord in repentance, ask for forgiveness, and, hopefully, learn to stay closer to the Lord so that, with time, the old nature has less and less opportunity to break free in our lives.

Secondly, I believe the process of becoming like Christ is an ongoing one. That is, we start out as babes in the truth. Like the children I work with at school learn content areas gradually, we must learn what it is Christ would have us to do, and what it means to take on His character. For example, a basic tenet of being Christian is to no long desire to steal. With time, our understanding of "loving thy neighbor as yourself" expands the meaning of stealing. Thus, the Lord comes in and works on the heart a little more. And the same will be true for the other basics of Christian behavior - we'll get a better understanding of things like what it means to not take the Lord's name in vain, or to covet, or to have no other gods before Him. Like Christ was and is, we will become.

There are several passages by one of my favorite authors I would like to share along this line:

"The less we see to esteem in ourselves, the more we shall see to esteem in the infinite purity and loveliness of our Saviour. A view of our sinfulness drives us to Him who can pardon and when the soul, realizing its helplessness, reaches out after Christ, He will reveal Himself in power. The more our sense of need drives us to Him and to the word of God, the more exalted views we shall have of His character, and the more fully we shall reflect His image." E. G. White, Steps to Christ, p. 65

"The nearer we come to Jesus, and the more clearly we discern the purity of His character, the more clearly shall we see the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and the less shall we feel like exalting ourselves. There will be a continual reaching out of the soul after God, a continual, earnest, heartbreaking confession of sin and humbling of the heart before Him. At every advance step in our Christian experience our repentance will deepen." E. G. White, Acts of the Apostles, p. 561.

Yes, the Lord may need to come back and wash certain areas of our lives over and over, even when we're making progress on the Christian walk. The key, though, is that we're making progress. And that day will come (He promises it!) when, like my house that looks brand new, we'll fully reflect His image. What a wonderful Savior!

Dr. G