There’s a joke in our family about cleaning… Goes like this: There is what other people consider “clean” – and then there is “Sharon clean!” Let me tell you, my wife is a thorough cleaner! We moved into a house that had been “cleaned” by those who lived there before us… Not acceptable for Sharon! … Under the frig, behind the stove, top closet shelves, behind the toilet… “It’s filthy!” she exclaimed! Not “Sharon clean!”
And there’s “self-satisfied clean” – even “self-righteous – religiously clean” and “God-clean” … NOT the same thing! In fact, God’s assessment of the “self-satisfied, the self-righteous” – even the “religiously-clean” – goes like this… “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags!” (Isaiah 64:6 NIV)
So this morning during my Bible reading during “coffee with the Lord” I read about “God-clean!”
“When Christ came as high priest of the good things that are now already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands… He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place ONCE FOR ALL by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption! The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who were ceremonially unclean sanctified them so that they were outwardly clean. HOW MUCH MORE, THEN, WILL THE BLOOD OF CHRIST, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, CLEANSE OUR CONSCIENCES FROM ACTS THAT LEAD TO DEATH, SO THAT WE MAY SERVE THE LIVING GOD!” (From Hebrews 9:11–14 NIV)
“God-clean!” Not simply outwardly clean… ceremonially clean… or reformed clean – “God-cleaned” – clean “inside-out!” Think of it – our “consciences” scrubbed clean though the “precious blood of Jesus” so we may “serve the Living God!” 1 John 1:7 declares “The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, CLEANSES US FROM ALL SIN!” And another declaration from the Bible about the possibility of being “God-clean” through Jesus Christ: “He made Him [Jesus] who knew no sin to be sin for us, THAT WE MIGHT BECOME THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD IN HIM!” (2 Corinthians 5:21)
Gotta tell you… I want to be “God-clean!”
Coffee With The Lord 