“Can we walk in this world and not get dirty?” - George Eybers
Dec 06, 2010
This is a very honest question someone once asked, which in itself might sound as a good excuse for trying to live a “reasonable” life.
“How can I help it, that I am like the world when I have been placed here? Surely I cannot help the fact that the world will have an impact on me?”
“How can God then, expect me to not be stained by this life?”
Valid questions, yet when I look at these questions from God's point of view I realize that from birth I am soiled because of the original sin (what was committed in the garden of Eden), and that every moment I am on this earth, my sinful nature just makes me even dirtier.
Everything I do outside of Christ (as I am by natural birth) adds to this soiling and aggravates my foul condition which just causes this already eternal divide between me and God to grow. That is the primary working of sin....causing separation between us and God.
As I then realize by His Spirit this hopeless situation, by the grace of God, He intervenes in my life and shows me Jesus after I realize how dirty I really am, and that nothing this world has to offer could even wash away one stain....not even cold water OMO!
Now, as He calls me out of darkness into His marvelous light, how do I not get dirty as I walk through this world?
Well, He gives me His Word, His Spirit and godly friends as His agents for this cleansing process. At salvation my spirit is saved, yet salvation is not an isolated, once off process but rather a cleansing that starts with my spirit, and works its way through all aspects of my life in order for me to eventually become the pure and spotless bride of Christ without spot, blemish or wrinkle...in body, soul and spirit.
“As justification removes the guilt of sin (those in Christ receives pardon as He takes our guilt on Himself), so sanctification removes the power of it” - Schaeffer.
So, what should I do?
Yield to this cleaning process and become what you have been destined for!
“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.
The Holy Bible : English standard version. 2001 (Is 1:18). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.
