Cleansed!

Tuesday, January 24, 2023

But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.                       1 Corinthians 6:11

Paul makes the point that trusting Christ has forgiven us, brings with it the sense that we’ve been cleansed from our sins, made right with God.  It is also hardly necessary to say, we should, as his serious disciples, continue to live cleansed.

In the full-disclosure department, I’m as prone to do goofy stuff as much as any other human…sometimes more!  Last week I had one of those moments.  I was running a little bit behind schedule, and was picking up the pace to get on track.  We had finished a late breakfast.  We use paper plates to go easy on the dishwasher, so one of the last moments of a meal is letting Wellie (our resident dishwasher) lick the plate clean.  For a small dog, that tongue does a big job, removing every last reminder there was ever food on the plate.

Carrying the silverware, coffee cups, and Wellie-cleaned paper plates into the kitchen, I put the cups and forks in the sink.  Staring at the paper plates in my hand, time stood still for just an instant.  I had a moment of indecision-muddle, whether to put the paper plates in the sink, garbage, or with the clean dishware in the cabinet.  It was a disturbance of my peace, to say the least.

I know, and have always known, eating off the same plate a dog has cleaned (even my sweet mutt), is a disgusting prospect.  But, there it is…an unguarded moment, thinking about getting out the door for our appointment, not the task at hand; I nearly chose the cabinet.  After all, we had paid six-cents apiece for those little plates; a second use would cut the price in half!

It was then reality kicked-in.  In that moment, confronted with saving three-cents, (Six-cents if you factor-in reusing my wife’s plate too….don’t you dare tell her), in that two or three nanoseconds of indecision, common sense arrived.  There was no justification for saving three (or six) cents, stacked-up against the zillions of dollars I’d spend at the doctor’s office battling whatever exotic germs my dog had brought-in on his tongue from rummaging around on the ground in the back yard.  The plates immediately entered the kingdom of trash.

My “goofy moment” is an analogy of what’s going on in our minds, spiritually, with the whole issue of temptation.  There are things a six-year-old understands to be wrong, yet we entertain them; we give sin a foothold.  Given time, prayer, and a heart willing to align with God’s will, our decision-making becomes much stronger, rejecting the impulses we have, which our enemy, Satan is more than willing to use in ruining our witness and peace in Christ.

John Wesley’s advice on getting the best use of our time and call to minister God’s Word and blessings to others, speaks volumes to my tendency to be preoccupied, and vulnerable to the enemy’s tactics:  Be always moving, and never in a hurry.

For You Today  

Let’s let apostle Peter have the last word about this day’s caution:

Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.  1 Peter 5:8

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

The Problem with Dirty Laundry  and  When Innocence Shines

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Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©