Give me Jesus

This summer we sang a song most all of you know called "Jesus Paid it All". The last line of the chorus says, "Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow." One morning while we were singing this song in worship, we repeated this line several times as we were building into another section of the song. I started to concentrate on a different word of this line each time we repeated it, and I was just so in awe of the Lord by the end of it that I couldn't even play my keyboard part in the next section of the song.

HE--The God of the universe. My Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer, Rewarded, Rebuilder, Restorer, Maker all things new, Deliverer. My Father, Best Friend, Author of Salvation, Air I Breathe, Everything I know to be GOOD and TRUE. HE did it. HE took my sins away. Not MY efforts. Not MY works. Not my family. Not my best friend back home. Not a song that gives me chills. Not a TV show or magazine add that made me feel better or worse about myself. Not my good grades or social status. HE DID IT. I DIDN'T DESERVE IT. HE DIDN'T HAVE TO. BUT HE DID. HE did.

WASHED--I don't know about ya'll, but I actually like to do laundry. I LOVE the smell of just-cleaned clothes. I love the feel of just-out-of-the-dryer jeans and socks (in the winter...not so much in the blazing heat). I love knowing that the events of yesterday (the chocolate smudge on my jeans; the coffee I spilled on my shirt in the car; my socks that smelled from running) not only don't hinder my plans for today, but there is also no remaining evidence that they ever existed in my yesterday. They are gone. They've been scrubbed out. Rinsed out. And given a clean start to (inevitably) happen again. He WASHED my junk out. He-the God of the universe-took my DIRTY stains and gave me a brand NEW shirt. A NEW pair of socks to run in today. He knows the patterns of life that will again turn me away from His pure gift, but He does my laundry anyway.

IT--Sin. MY sin. The JUNK. The unforgivable. The things hidden in the secret places that I think no one else knows about. But He knows. And He forgives. He still chooses to take IT. My garbage. The box that I put Him in. The lack of trust. The worrying. The pride. The word. The thoughts. The actions. MY dumpster of rebellion and unbelief.

WHITE--Such a pretty color. :) I always thought those people who answered the question, "what is your favorite color" with "WHITE" were boring and not very risky. I mean come on...white? But now I think they were on to something. White is just a happy color to me. No spots or lines or worrying if it matches. PURE. Simple. CLEAN. That makes me think of laundry again. :) I have this thing where every time I sort of "start over" and recommit to something I always go by a new notebook or journal. It's a new beginning. Clean pages for a NEW story, with a different ending-hopefully a better one that takes me a little farther than before--a little closer to the goal...until I realize it's time to wipe the slate clean and try again. A new canvas for the artist to create a masterpiece.

AS--A comparison word. I almost skipped this word because please, it's like 2 letters and exists simply serves its grammatical purpose in completing the sentence. But then I started thinking about the meaning of comparing us to the next word seen below, and realized that this word "as" has more meaning than I thought. "White AS snow". Not ALMOST as white as snow. Not ALMOST pure and beautiful. Not ALMOST a clean slate. WHITE AS SNOW. PERIOD. The whole shebang. All of IT. GONE. HE makes us perfect and worthy. HE calls us into His own. He chose you. He chose me. In our darkest, dirtiest, most weak and pitiful state. And He washed us as white as snow.

SNOW--Some of my most joyful memories have been in snow storms. (Well, not so much IN the storm, but the aftermath when I get to enjoy it.) I love how PURE everything looks. How PEACEFUL. How that fresh blanket of got-me-out-of-school fun is so inviting as it beckons me to come and play--play like when I was a child and had no worries or fears--just complete delight in my surroundings. God invites us into the same purity as that of his perfect Son. To delight in everything that He is and surrounds us with. To be at peace with and in Him. To be beautiful because of Him. To be WASHED as WHITE as SNOW.

Please take a sec and click on the link below and be blessed by the worship you will find on the other side. (It is by the same girl whose video I posted earlier.) I listened to this with my eyes closed and all I could think was pure beauty.

Give Me Jesus