Whitewashed sin
A friend left me a message asking me if we could process together the idea of being held accountable before God at the end of life. You know, a surface conversation for a random Monday. This friend is a ministry leader, a strong Christ follower, someone who knows the Bible well. Yet, as she grows and continues to understand more of the gospel – even 30 years later – she still has moments where she finds herself in awe of God’s love for her.
I want to be like her!
Every. Single. Day.
I want to continually be in awe that the God and Creator of the universe would choose to set my sins as far as the east is from the west so He can be in relationship with me.
As we processed, I was struck by the way she came to her own realization through conversations with friends, that the way God chooses to forgive us is the ACTUAL good news! The way He takes our scarlet sin – whether it be big and public or small and private – God takes it and makes it white as snow.
He erases it.
He separates it.
He whitewashes it.
It no longer exists.
It will never exist.
It is incredibly good news for someone like me who had to ask forgiveness from my 9 year old son yesterday for yelling at him when I couldn’t regulate my own emotions. It is really good news for me when I harbor hurt from a friends’ comments but refuse to confront her. It is really good news for me when I seek approval from the people around me. It is really good news for me when I allow fear to keep me from being obediently brave. It is really good news for me when I refuse to do the thing I know I am supposed to do because it just may be too hard. It is always really good news that God sees “white as snow” when He looks at me and not my list of failures.
It is good news for you too.
God calls you to reason with Him, and as you do He offers this incredible gift. This gift really made a lot of people mad when Jesus walked the earth. There was a man on a stretcher who could not walk and Jesus told him that his sins were forgiven. (Luke 5:18) When He did this, all these spiritual leaders were so angry that Jesus thought He had the authority to act as God. So Jesus said fine, “Get up and walk” and the man did. People were fine with Jesus performing miracles that they could see, but they did not like that Jesus was offering miraculous inward healing as well. They did not feel safe knowing Jesus had the authority to heal people’s hearts and therefore their eternity.
But the good news is – Jesus had the authority then, and He has the authority now.
None of us deserve it. None of us can come close to repaying it. None of us are worthy. None of us can offer anything of worth to God. But still, yet still – He still asks us to come to Him so He can offer us this incredible gift. The gift of relationship with Him that starts by Him doing what He did when Jesus walked the earth. He says “Your sins are forgiven.”
Yes, let me never forget the audacity of God to claim He will make me white as snow for the purpose of drawing me close.