I Shall Be Clean

Sin makes you feel dirty, filthy, and nasty. That’s good. It means the mirror of the Ten Commandments is working in your life. You need to feel defiled when you sin. We have broken God’s moral law when we disobey the Ten Commandments. A.W. Tozer writes:

    “But everything that is morally commanded in the Ten Commandments still comprises the moral principles that are the will of God for His people. God’s basic moral will for His people has not changed!”

When we are outside of God’s will our fellowship with Him is broken; we are defiled by sin and nothing but the blood of Christ will scrub us clean. David’s sin was so vile that he literally felt crushed by it; he needed a holy cleansing. And like Adam and Eve he couldn’t stand the thought of God looking upon his sin.

    “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me hear joy and gladness, that the bones You have broken may rejoice. Hide Your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.” (Psalm 51:7-9)

Too often that is not me.

Too often I’m okay with my sin. That is I justify it any number of ways.

Oh would that I actually desire God to hide His face from my sins! Then I would receive the blessed holy cleansing!

Purge me…you know what the literal translation in Hebrew is? “Un-sin me.” Lord, make it as though it never happened in my life.

No, I usually say, Lord…please forgive me…you know I love You. Jesus replies:

    “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” (John 14:15)

I actually open my mouth as though I have some response. But alas, I too hide my face. Such gall to think I have an answer for the Lord!

Cleanse me Lord! Scrub away all the pride in my heart. Let me see exactly how filthy my stinking thinking has become. Let me see the dirt run off me as mud in a shower.

Wash me Lord and I shall be clean. I shall be clean. I’ll be whiter than snow. No, that’s not a good description as to how clean I will be, but a heavenly cleansing is beyond description so David did his best to describe it. It is a purity beyond human description because it is of a heavenly design.

Beloved do not avoid this washing. The filth of your sin will become a crust around your heart eventually hardening into stone. John Bunyan warns:

    “If you have sinned, do not lie down without repentance; for the want of repentance after one has sinned makes the heart yet harder and harder”

If I try to purify myself through human means, I do not experience repentance and my heart just grows harder. Nothing but the blood of Jesus can cleanse my sins:

    What can wash away my sin?
    Nothing but the blood of Jesus;
    What can make me whole again?
    Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

    Refrain

    Oh! precious is the flow
    That makes me white as snow;
    No other fount I know,
    Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

    For my pardon, this I see,
    Nothing but the blood of Jesus;
    For my cleansing this my plea,
    Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

I want my bones, broken by the weight of sin, to once again rejoice!

Then I will stop groaning and once again gladly hear God’s Word and rejoice in my salvation.

More on that tomorrow.

In Christ
Dave
Ps. 37:4

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    Copyright © 2010 David Jeffers

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