I have a great tendency to be too hard on myself at times, trying to be my own judge. Many people say kind and encouraging things to me but I tend to listen to that one negative statement and allow that to be the focus of my attention rather than focusing on what my Father says about me. Simply put, I sometimes fall prey to the lies of the enemy by lingering on the one negative thought he whispers into my mind’s ear. He walks away and I do all the rest of the liar’s work for him, becoming my own judge, jury, and executioner.
Through the years, I have learned to more readily recognize this tendency and have become better at quickly cutting off the root of those kinds of lies and replacing them with the truth of God’s Word. It is interesting to look back and see how far He has brought me – and to see how much of what I received from the Lord by way of renewing my thoughts. From the point of my salvation I began the life-long journey of renewing my mind.
In those early days - after my salvation experience - I still battled thoughts of being unworthy and filthy and vile and unlovable because I was just learning how to renew my mind in Christ. The conclusion I came to was simple. He is God and I am not. I cannot truly judge my own heart adequately.
Only the Lord can judge my heart. Only the blood of Jesus makes me worthy to enter His presence. Only faith in Him allows me to approach Him boldly and trust Him to do the cleansing – to bring me clean. A great illustration of the cleansing power and redeeming love of Jesus Christ was revealed to me as Melinda and I began to have our own family.
If one of my children fell and hurt himself and got up dirty and crying then came to me for help, I would not send him away to clean himself up. To the contrary, I would pick him up, clean him off as I embraced him and tended to his wounds. Isn’t this the way we should approach our heavenly Father? If I waited until I was “clean” or “confessed up” before I could enter His presence, I’d never get there. We need to let Him do the cleansing. We simply need to approach Him boldly!
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous, so that He will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9 NASB
You are probably tired of hearing me say this, but it is foundational truth: The awesome news of God’s redeeming love and cleansing power is that He wastes nothing. He does not waste our sorrow. He does not waste our wounds. He does not even waste our failures.
Hebrews 4:14-16 NASB says, 14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let's hold firmly to our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things just as [we are, yet] without sin. 16 Therefore let's approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace for help at the time of [our] need.
Let’s stop allowing the enemy to dupe us into believing we are filthy, vile failures and beyond forgiveness and beyond restoration. Let’s boldly approach the throne of grace and walk in the beauty and reality of who He says we are. Let Him bring you clean…
Dennis Jernigan
To hear The Dennis Jernigan Podcast version of this teaching, go to http://podcast.dennisjernigan.com/e/bring-me-clean/
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