Reflect on the following:

Sometimes getting dirty can be fun. Painting, cooking, gardening, sport, can all be activities we do for fun that may get us a little messy. Sometimes getting clean can be fun. Having a shower and putting on fresh clean clothes after a sweaty, muddy, soccer game feels great.

But there are also times when getting dirty is downright disgusting. I remember watching horrified as my dad cleaned out a blocked sewerage trench - reaching down into the stinky sludge with his bare arms. And there are times when the dirt just won't budge. The stain on a beloved piece of clothing. Or much worse a psychological or spiritual sense of being tainted, guilty, that just won't go away.

While most dirt, even sewage sludge, can be scrubbed away with a good cake of soap, spiritual cleansing doesn’t come that easy.

The bible describes spiritual cleansing, the washing away of all one’s wrongdoings and moral guilt, as something that can only be done by Jesus Christ.

“Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” Ephesians 5:25-27

Jesus Christ sacrificed his life to make us spiritually clean forever. By dying on the cross he paid the price for our wrongdoings and guilt. All who trust in Jesus’ loving act of cleansing will stand before God “without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish” and even better be considered “holy and blameless” in God’s sight.

The dirt and mess in this world is inevitable and temporary, but eternal purity through Jesus Christ will last forever.

Read God’s word the Bible, see what Jesus is offering you and get clean forever.

PRAYER: Dear God, I want to be spiritually clean, holy and blameless in your sight. Thank you for loving me so much that Jesus sacrificed himself to make me clean. Please help me to trust this everyday. Amen.