| “That is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” |
| —1 Corinthians 6:11 |
Have you ever gotten really dirty? I don’t mean a little dusty. I mean really, really dirty. Perhaps you helped a friend change the engine, or the transmission, of that friend’s vehicle. When the job was done, you were covered in grease and grime. Or maybe, you helped someone dig a trench so that a footer could be poured for a new house. The soil was mostly clay. It was tough going, but at the end you reached your goal below the frost line. You also recognized that you now looked like a mud ball of soil and dirt.
The next step in your transformation from hard-working helper back to somewhat normal-looking human being was to take a shower or bath to remove the grease or dirt that covered you from head to toe. Once you stepped out of the shower or tub and dried off, you looked much more like you normally do. You looked clean, smelled clean, you were clean!
We were born in sin and continue to commit sin as a part of our normal lives on this earth. Sin has stained us deeply. We need cleansing. Jesus provides the only way to make us clean from our sin. No matter what those sins might be, the shed blood of Jesus is the cleaning agent that washes that sin stain away.
The Apostle Paul described a long list of sins that had formerly imprisoned the people gathered in the church at Corinth. But, he concludes with these words, found in 1 Corinthians 6:11:
That is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
The cleansing power of Jesus makes us “just as if we’d never sinned.” That’s what justification is all about. More so, Jesus—through the power of the Holy Spirit—makes us holy, or sanctified, so that we may someday bow in the Presence of a holy God.
This day, let’s be grateful that we have been washed in the shed blood of God’s precious Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ. And, let us recognize that holiness is now the goal for which we strive, as we allow the Holy Spirit to move us along the pathway that He has stretched out before us.
As we walk forward, we can have the great joy of sharing with others the blessing of being thoroughly clean and beautifully holy. And that, dear ones, is what our new life in Christ is all about.
Based on a blog originally posted on Friday, November 10, 2017
