The Ultimate Stain Remover

Of all my household chores, laundry is one of my least favorites. Trying to sort through the mountains of dirty clothes that come from my big brood leaves me exhausted. And then there are the stains. I am always looking for the stains.

Sometimes there are huge, messy stains that need extra shots of stain remover and a lot of soaking. Other times the stains are a little less severe, and a quick squirt of spot remover takes them right out. Often the stains are so insignificant that they go unnoticed by my searching eye, yet come right out with only the laundry soap to attack them. With the various degrees of staining comes various degrees of removal needed.

Isn’t that the way our sin can be? Sometimes our sins are big and messy. They require a lot of change on our part, and a tremendous amount of grace. We scrub and we soak, intent on ridding ourselves of those messy places. We strive for cleansing and a feeling of refreshing. Other times, our sins are a little less severe in nature. Those are the things that we can change with a thought or a quick action. They still require the grace, but the severity of our guilt and shame doesn’t compare to those big, nasty messes. And then there are those hidden sins. The ones that might not be noticed by human eye. The ones that only we know about. These are the sins we acknowledge to no one else. These are the messes we take before the Lord in secret. We tend to judge ourselves based on the severity of our sin. In our minds it is okay to assume that some sin doesn’t hold the same level of importance as other sin. We justify why certain sins are “okay”, while others are not.

The truth is that sin is sin. We are all equal at the foot of the cross. We have all sinned. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, (Romans 3:23). The beauty is that we have a God who has an abundant supply of grace just waiting for us. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1 John 1:8-10).

God’s grace removes our sin from us. Jesus’ death in the cross is the ultimate stain remover. Through his sacrifice and his blood shed for us, we can be like my clean laundry….spotless and stain free.