Dirty Laundry

“And as a penalty they must bring to the priest, that is, to the Lord, their guilt offering, a ram from the flock, one without defect and of the proper value. In this way the priest will make atonement for them before the Lord, and they will be forgiven for any of the things they did that made them guilty.”

– Leviticus 6:6-7

Cleanliness is next to Godliness.

It’s a familiar saying that appears nowhere in the Bible, but many believe it’s the Gospel truth. We start or end most days with a hot shower or bath. We stock our bathrooms with antibacterial soaps. And we buy costly laundry detergents and bleaches promising brilliant whites and vivid colors. It all adds up to a global soap and detergent industry generating combined annual revenues exceeding $280 billion.

Our desire to stay clean seems to be hard-wired into our DNA. But this intense longing covers much more than our face and hands. We also want to be just as clean on the inside. That means a clean heart, a clean conscience, and a clean spirit. And what we want most is a clean start in life.

But in the earliest chapters of the Bible, we read that mankind chose to turn its back on God and do its own thing. We decided to live our lives on our own terms and ignore the One who made us, knows us, and loves us. And by disobeying God, we destroyed our perfect environment and became soiled with a black spot on our souls that the strongest detergent can never remove. 

“Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin,” pleaded King David, the one called a man after God’s own heart.

It’s this same plea that we should offer up to God every day. However, access to God is costly, and He’s holy while people are not. The good news is that our Creator long ago responded to our helplessness in a most miraculous way. But it wasn’t by devising some sort of payment plan for all the damage we’ve done to our own lives and to others. The cost was much too high for that.

Instead, God chose to pay the price himself through the death of his only Son, Jesus Christ. So, as predicted centuries earlier in the Old Testament, He came to earth in the form of a helpless infant, grew up, and lived a faultless, sin-free life. Later, He was unjustly executed although He’d done no wrong.

Christ’s crucifixion was grossly unfair. But there was no other way to fully pay the penalty that we alone deserve. He was the perfect sacrifice, who came to earth to make us right with God. For you and me, it means when we put our faith in Jesus as our Savior, God sees us as spotless and blameless like his Son. All we need to do is accept this free — yet incredibly costly — gift of grace.

“I, the LORD, invite you to come and talk it over,” says our Creator through the book of Isaiah. “Your sins are scarlet red, but they will be whiter than snow or wool.”

Now’s the time to wash our dirty laundry ... and come clean with God.