Washed Clean

[0:00] A pastor's reflections, washed clean. Exodus 30, 19 and 20.! Our lives are very much the sum of our daily decisions.

[0:39] It is by our choices that we progress through each day that is given to us. Yesterday's decisions are in the past, but their effects linger long into the future.

[0:51] What you and I choose to give our time to today will be part of the equation of the sum of our lives for tomorrow. Even our walk with God is based upon the choices we make regarding who He is and what He says.

[1:08] To believe is simply to choose. In Exodus 30, God is giving Moses the last of the implements for the furnishing of the tabernacle.

[1:19] Moses would need to make a bronze basin for the priest to wash in. They would not be bathing in it, but they would be using this basin to ensure that they were coming before God with clean hands and feet.

[1:31] Was it that God didn't want them eating with dirty hands? Or that He didn't want to smell their dirty feet? No. The outward washing was simply symbolic of the inward cleansing of the spirit that God desired them to maintain.

[1:50] Those with filthy actions and a filthy walk cannot be of service to God. However, they can come clean. In 1 Timothy 2, Paul is establishing the action of prayer in the life of the believer.

[2:06] He instructs them to serve God by coming into His presence in prayer. Those prayers are to be for small and great alike. However, Paul places upon those prayers a condition.

[2:20] They must be made with holy, clean hands. Just like under the old covenant, the principle remains that service to God cannot be made by that which is unclean.

[2:35] There are times when we can grow discouraged by looking at the choices that have made up the sum of our lives. We see that not all of our decisions and actions have led us into that which is clean.

[2:48] In fact, there are times when we feel downright dirty. How can God accept our service when we feel so unclean? 1 Timothy 2, 5 and 6 For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time.

[3:11] The basis upon which Paul commands all men to pray with holy hands is not found within those men themselves. It is found in the cleansing work of Jesus.

[3:24] It is by the work of another that we can come clean. Yes, our life is made up of the choices we make. And today, we can make a choice to come clean.

[3:34] We can choose to put our faith in the cleansing work of Jesus and go forth in service to God with a clean walk and clean hands.

[3:44] If you make the choice today to believe that God has washed your hands, then take a moment to lift those holy hands in prayer to him.

[3:57] Father, thank you that every action and every decision I make has come under the cleansing power of your blood. There is now no aspect of the sum of my life that needs to remain unclean.

[4:10] Today, help me to walk and act as one who has been washed clean. Amen.