Stained? pt.2

There are great products on the market for removing stains from just about any surface; like carpet, furniture, clothes and more. Even with all the advanced technology of today, most of the stain removers still have to display a simple but important warning: "Use a color safe sponge or cloth."

If you have ever ignored that warning and used a dyed sponge, you'll remember how your carpet turned the color of your sponge, resulting in a stain worse than what was originally there.

Our best actions are like a non-color safe sponge or cloth. When we try to clean up a mess we've made, we end up making a bigger mess than before. We think we can use good deeds to clean up the stains our sins have left behind. But no matter what we do within our own power, the stains still remain.

"All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away." Isaiah 64:6

Isaiah compares our righteous acts to filthy rags. We think we can rely on our good works to clean up the messes we've made. But God says even our best actions are stained. Our pride, selfishness or ignorance gets in the way of our actions being pure and clean.

Remember that God is the only one who can clean up our mess. He offers unlimited forgiveness. And when we seek his righteousness, he cleans our lives with the most powerful agent known to man — the blood of his son, Jesus Christ.