Picture this: You’re sitting in sludge. Deep, dark, smelly sludge. It covers you from head to toe. You’re clothes are worn and tattered, and you
can’t see any way to climb out or clean up.
Then you look up and see someone standing there, offering to lift you
out of the sludge, offering to help you get clean and free of it. And not only is he offering to help you out
of the sludge, he is holding a brand new set of clothes for you. Clothes that suit you perfectly and fit
better than anything you have ever known.
You know that the clothes cost him more than you could ever have paid,
but he is offering them to you for free; all you have to do is accept the
offer. Not only that, but he has a path
for you to walk on, a solid, firm path which leads to a luxurious mansion that
he has prepared for you. And he will
walk with you along the path to help guide you.
You jump up, you accept the new outfit, and when you do you look down
and realise that the sludge is all gone.
You’re completely clean and free of it.
The new clothes look amazing on and you feel the most free you ever
have. You walk along the firm path with
your new friend guiding you and encouraging you along the way. Then one day you look down and realise that
you have drifted off the path a bit, you’re walking on the edge of the sludge
again. The bottoms of your new clothes
are getting dirty, you feel a little guilty for getting your new clothes dirty but
you think “it’s ok, it’s only a little muck, and I’ve been in worse”. Your friend is there, encouraging you to get
back on the path. He says he can clean
the muck off and it will be like it was never there, but you choose to keep
going, thinking that you’ll be fine.
Then it starts to rain, a dirty, dusty rain. You notice that now the top of your new
clothes is getting dirty and the sludge is getting deeper and harder to walk
through. Your friend is still there,
encouraging you back onto the firm path.
He’s holding an umbrella to protect you from the rain and reminding you
that if you let him help you back on to the path he will clean your clothes off
and they’ll be like new. But you persist,
you tell him you’ll be fine, you know what you’re doing, it’s nothing you
haven’t coped with before and there are other people covered in more muck than
you so it’s all good. Then you trip and
fall. You’re down in the muck, covered
in it again from head to toe. You
realise that you made a mistake, that you should have gotten back on the path
earlier and then you wouldn’t be where you are now. You feel frustrated, ashamed. You think about your new clothes and the
price that your friend paid so you could have them. How could you have let him down so
badly? Yet your friend is still there,
hand out to you, offering to lift you back onto the path, to clean you up again
and set you free. His umbrella is in his
hand to protect you from the storm. He tells
you that it doesn’t matter that you stumbled, that you got your new clothes
covered in muck. He says that he still
cares for you, that the price is paid for the clothes and that if you take his
hand he will wash you clean again and you can continue on the journey; no need
for guilt and that if you just take his had it will be like it never
happened. You reach up, take his hand
and find that it is true. You are clean
again, free again, and your feet are back on solid ground, what an awesome
friend!
While this analogy is somewhat
simplistic and clumsy, it is the analogy of our lives and what Jesus does for
us. Before we are saved, we are covered
in sin, represented by the sludge. It
covers us, invades every aspect of our lives.
When we accept salvation, Jesus frees us from that. Psalm 40 says that
He
lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out
of the mud and mire;
he
set my feet on a rock
and
gave me a firm place to stand.
Jesus puts us on a path, the plan
he has for us is a good one (Jeremiah 29:11), he washes us clean and gives us
new clothes to wear. We are, in fact,
new people (2 Corinthians 5:17). And not
only does he put us on the path, he walks with us to help us along. The trouble is, life has challenges. Sometimes it can be easy to wander off the
path a little bit, to walk away from what Christ has for us. This is where we see in the story that we are
walking off the path, that the bottoms of our new clothes are getting muddy. Sometimes we see what we are doing and
correct it, we jump straight back on the path.
Other times we don’t see it, we ignore it or we justify it. Life also has storms, the dirty and dusty
rain. We get tempted, the devil throws
his fiery darts at us. Jesus has given
us an umbrella for these storms, or more appropriately, armour (Ephesians
6:10-17). He has given us a means to
avoid getting wet and stay safe. But
again at times we choose not to use it, or we forget it’s there. The rain gets through to us, the storms slow
us down. And often that is when we
stumble, when we fall into the sludge again.
So often when we fall it is easier to stay there. To stay in the sludge and feel sorry for
ourselves. The devil tells us that we
don’t deserve to be clean, that Jesus can’t possibly love us now. He tells us that we should just stay there,
wallow in it and dwell in self-pity. Or
even worse, dig deeper, enjoy the sludge, after all, it’s not that bad. But this is not what the Word of God says. This is contrary to the truth that sets us
free (John 8:32). Romans 8:1-2 says
this:
Therefore,
there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2
because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you
free from the law of sin and death.
Notice that, there is NO
condemnation for us in Christ. When we
sin all we need to do is confess it and ask for forgiveness and God will
forgive us and “cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). It’s that easy! No tricks, no gimmicks, no catches. So what about our feelings of guilt? John 3:20 says:
If
our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he
knows everything.
Even when we get caught up in
self-condemnation we can be assured that God still doesn’t condemn us. And since God knows everything, we can trust
Him over our feelings which can be swayed so easily. Does this mean we can just do what we want
and not worry about sin? Not at
all! Paul talks about this in Romans 6
and says:
Do
not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but
rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to
life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of
righteousness.
Jesus has paid a great price for
us, he has given us an amazing gift. Go
back to the analogy. If someone has
given you an outfit of great value, more than you can ever hope to pay, are you
going to go walking through the mud with it?
Or are you going to stay on the firm, solid path to look after such a
precious gift. It is the same with what
Christ has done for us. He has set us
free, he has given us the gift of eternal life.
He has won a victory for us that we could never win for ourselves. Paul goes on in Romans 8:37-39 to say that:
37
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,
neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither
height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate
us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
So next time you are struggling,
next time you have stumbled and feel like giving up, remember that. Remember that there is NO condemnation for
you in Christ Jesus, and that nothing can ever separate you from his love! What an awesome promise and an amazing
victory!
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