A Word from the Women's Bible Study
By Dar Stucke
“Come now let’s settle this,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, I will make them as white as wool.” Isaiah 1:18
I have a college friend who had only one child, a daughter. This daughter now has ten children of her own, including two sets of twins. She lives with her husband and family on an acreage where she has a gigantic garden, homeschools her children and cares for her mother who has severe memory loss, due to surgery complications a few years ago. She recently discovered a cleaning solution that treats stains more effectively than any other cleaning product she’d previously used. Grass, tar, spaghetti sauce, kool-aid, juice, ink— you name it—no longer ruin her kid’s clothes. She rubs a teeny bit of this gel-like cleaner into the fabric and presto! The stain is gone.
I can’t help but marvel at the parallelism between physical stains and spiritual stains. Where as soap removes stains from our clothing, so Jesus’s shed blood removes stains from our hearts and minds.
What types of stains cover us? A common one is shame for either the wrong things we have done or the hurtful things that other people have done to us. It leaves us feeling like we belong in the discard pile. The list might include but is not limited to impure thoughts, selfishness, unforgiveness, materialism, pride, gluttony, jealousy, prayerlessness and discrimination.
We might try to wash away our sin stains using man-made remedies. We can immerse ourselves in church activities, donating to charities, do-good busyness, or attempting to be an upstanding person and citizen. These can all be good things, but the only truly effective cleanser is Jesus blood, His death on the cross for you and me. Holy Week lends itself to reflecting on Jesus’s death and resurrection and the difference both make in our lives. It is now possible to become members of His family. We are called to be children of the living God because of what He has done for us.
My grandma sang an old gospel song that says, “What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.” Indeed, Jesus blood is the only cleanser that removes our sin stains. Nothing else will do. Read Colossians 1:21-23 and then set a timer for every hour today. When it goes off, thank Jesus for His death on the cross for you, for that and that alone is your salvation.
Dear Jesus, How can I ever thank You enough for how You suffered for me. To You be the glory forever and ever. Thank You for this blessed Easter Season. In Your name, Amen 🙏
My thanks to Grace Fox and the book, MORNINGS WITH JESUS, for the inspiration for this meditation.
