Clean

My youth leader recently mentioned something I haven’t been able to stop thinking about. God cannot lie and lives outside the realm of time. Therefore, His promises are facts. They cannot be broken. Try to wrap your head around that. God’s promises are facts. So that makes this one, from Hebrews 10:22, true as well. We’re presentable, inside and out. 

I don’t think we realize how much something affects us until it’s gone. For me, that was shame. Shame manifested itself in every possible way in my life. It was the reason behind 99% of the things I did and said, and 99% of the things I didn’t do or say. It kept me from becoming.  And it was something I kept holding on to. It was the part of the gospel I didn’t understand; or yet decided to reject. By wallowing in pits of shame, I was saying to God, “the cross wasn’t enough for me. It wasn’t enough for You to die for me.” When we wallow in the shame of our past regrets, our past sins, or perhaps when we are reminded of our past mistakes every day, it becomes so easy to wallow in it. It becomes habit to let lies take over our brains. 

I praise God that I have recently decided to accept this piece of the Gospel...knowing that things I have done are gone for good. And yet it is these wise words of my youth leader and a new release by Natalie Grant, where a new realization has overtaken my mind. 

God didn’t just take our sin away. He didn’t just die for our sins. He didn’t just take away our dirty rags. He purified them. He made us CLEAN. We are presentable, inside and out. Because of His death on the cross, we are made blameless. We are seen just as the Father sees His Son. We are pure. We are CLEAN. Not only does He rip off shame from the core of our being; He replaces it with purity and cleanliness. There is nothing to dirty that He cannot make clean. And this my friends, is why, the cross was and is absolutely enough. 

I see shattered

You see whole

I see broken

But You see beautiful

And You're helping me to believe

You're restoring me piece by piece

What was dead now lives again

My heart's beating, beating inside my chest

Oh I'm coming alive with joy and destiny

Cause You're restoring me piece by piece

There's nothing too dirty that You can't make worthy

You wash me in mercy

I am clean.

There's nothing too dirty that You can't make worthy

You wash me in mercy

I am clean.

Washed in the blood of Your sacrifice

Your blood flowed red and made me white

My dirty rags are purified

I am clean