STAINS

I imagine that we’ve all dealt with stains before. Maybe it’s a pen that leaked, or that time you wore a white shirt to a spaghetti dinner, the grease spot that just won’t come out of your pants, or the permanent marker that your child used on your walls or on their clothes... Any of these can be frustrating, and can do damage to something you hoped would last a long time. 

Other times, things just get dirty … and those things are more easily cleaned. I’m not sure what it was, but someone’s dish must have leaked after last week’s pot-luck, and the evidence was on the stairs and in the church foyer. Granted, it only took a couple of minutes to clean up with a mop, but I image their car was a little more difficult to clean. 

But, then, there are stains that sin leaves. Sometimes the stains (we could also say, scars) come in the form of guilt. Other times, they could be broken relationships. For some sins, the stains could actually be diseases. I’m sure the list could go on. Like a bad stain, these things are not easily remedied and can have lasting implications. As Isaiah 1:18 says, our sins were “like scarlet” and “red like crimson.”  No amount of washing, apologizing, or restitution could take away the stain(s).  Unlike some stains, the stain of sin could not be wiped away by any amount of bleach. 

But, Isaiah 1:18 also says our sins could still become “white as snow” and “like wool.” However, in contrast to a normal stain, the only cure for our sin stain is blood … not just any blood, but the blood of Christ. As the old hymn goes, “What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus; What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.” He became our Passover Lamb. As Romans 3:23-26 says,

... all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. (ESV)

What a tremendous gift … that God would declare us justified, redeem us through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). If you are a child of God, I hope you celebrate that today! 

In His grip, 

Pastor Decker