Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Psalm 51:7
Our church makes a habit of going door to door in neighborhoods to try to spread the message of the gospel. Needless to say, we encounter some, shall we say, interesting things from time to time. One Saturday, as we walked, I came upon a man who was cleaning his car. Now, under normal circumstances, that would not be anything out of the ordinary. However, this fella had taken things to a level I had never seen. His car was spotless and beautiful, but he was not satisfied. He had taken the wheels off his car, and he was scrubbing places that would not even be seen from the outside. And here’s the kicker – he was using a toothbrush! I complimented his effort and the cleanness of his car and moved on.
As I walked, however, a thought struck me. What if we, as Christians were as concerned about our lives being as clean before God as that man was about his car? Have you ever asked God to go deep inside the recesses of your heart and clean out what may be years’ worth of unconfessed sin? “But,” you might argue, “nobody sees that, and nobody knows it is even there.” There is no way to describe the feeling of being absolutely clean before God and having the assurance that it is so. That man was washing his car in places that would never be seen by the public, but he would know that it was clean. And to him, there was probably a level of satisfaction, and maybe even of peace, that let him know that he had done everything he could for his car. How silly it seems that people are willing to go to such great lengths for a vehicle that in a few years will no longer drive, will be traded in for something else, could be wrecked, or any number of things. Yet, something as important as our soul is left unchecked, uncleaned, uncared for.
Imagine my surprise when, just a couple weeks later, I happened to drive by that man’s house again, and there he was, wheels off, scrubbing with a toothbrush. It is important that we allow God into the recesses of our hearts over and over again to make sure that even the tiniest of sins are not allowed to remain unnoticed or unconfessed. Like the man meticulously cleaning his car, let’s seek to experience the peace and satisfaction that comes from knowing we have done everything we can to be ultra clean before God.
Read also: Psalm 51:7-12
Quote of the day: “Measure your growth in grace by your sensitiveness to sin.”- Oswald Chambers
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