Washing With Water And The Word

God's loyal love couldn't have run out, his merciful love couldn't have dried up.  They're created new every morning.  How great your faithfulness! I'm sticking with GOD (I say it over and over).  He's all I've got left.  --Lamentations 3:22-24 (The Message)

I saw the movie War Room yesterday.  What a great film!  I found myself wiping tears from my eyes several times during the story.  Basically, every time they depicted the grace of God in the lives of men and women, I teared up.  (I will confess at shedding one or two tears when seeing Les Miserables--even though it is a secular story, it has moments of grace in it as well.)

As we were leaving the theater, my wife commented how the story line parrallels our own marriage in many ways.  I had to stop her in the parking lot and look her in the eyes to thank her for showing grace to me years ago when we divorced and remarried.  More recently than that, there were times when I would not shed tears for anything or anyone.  I was like an emotional zombie.  But the older I get, the more grateful I am for grace.  It brings tears to my eyes every time.

The marriage relationship is a fantastic vehicle for grace.  I think that is why the Apostle Paul used marriage as a picture of Jesus' relationship with us.  In the letter to the Ephesians, Paul admonished husbands to love their wives, "just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,. to make her holy"  He goes on in the very next verse to explain exactly how Christ makes her (the church) holy, and by extension how we (people) should treat our spouses:

To make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to prsent her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.  In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies.  He who loves his wife loves himself.  After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church. --Ephesians 5:26-29

The first thing I do every morning as soon as I get out of bed is take a shower.  Without that washing of my own body, I feel stinky and smelly, sweaty and oily; I don't want to be around anybody until I have had my shower.  I would not think of going more than one day without a shower.  Yet how many times have I gone days and days without "the washing of the Word"?  My Bible gathers dust as I try to face life's challenges myself, without any help.  Is it any wonder I struggle during those times?

Think about it:  Most of us in the First World bathe once a day.  We brush our teeth twice a day.   We wash our hands multiple times a day, either after they become unclean, or just before cooking or eating.  And yet we try to get by with just a weekly (or longer) episode of the washing of the Word.  Then, if someone comes to us who is filthier than we are, who needs a spiritual cleansing, we act like it is beneath us to minister to them, to care for them spiritually.  Are we really so holy that we cannot lower ourselves to the position of the drunks and prostitutes in order to help them out?  Or do we really have a knowledge deep down in our souls that we are just as sinful as they are, and we don't want our own sins to be exposed?

I know that my walk with Jesus is deeper and more fulfilling when I read my Bible some every day.  This is what I mean by the washing of the Word.  Read it.  Study the Scriptures.  "Be ready, in season and out of season," to share the Gospel message (2 Timothy 4:2).  To really be prepared, I must take the time every day to be in the Word, and to engage in the presence of Jesus.

Back to Paul's message in Ephesians 5 about our relationship with Christ being like a good, solid marriage relationship.  If we present ourselves to God, His grace takes us in and cleans us up.  In the same way, if your spouse has those annoying habits that just drive you up the wall, it is better to handle it with grace rather than with arguing or fighting.  In one scene of the movie War Room, the older lady who works as a spiritual mentor asks the young mother to write down all of her husband's faults.  She comes back in an hour, and the young mother has three pages of grievances written down. Then the older woman puts it in perspective when she asks, "How much grace has God given you?"  In other words, God has a lot more than three pages of sins and shortcomings in my life.  Yet He was willing to give His only Son as a sacrifice, to blot out my transgressions, and to restore a right relationship between me and a holy God.

Today in my quiet time I was reading a chapter from Leviticus.  There were so many things in the Law that made people unclean.  The chapter I read was about clean and unclean food.  Eating an unclean animal, or even touching the dead body of an unclean animal, made you unclean (that is, unholy, unfit to come before God or other people).  Elsewhere, there are warnings about touching unclean people; so if I touched the carcass of an unclean animal (maybe a dog had died in the street, or a shepherd had killed a wolf who was attacking a sheep), I would be unclean, and anyone who touched me would be unclean, as well.  But as I slowed down to read the real meaning of the verses, it struck me how many times the Scripture says "he will be unclean until evening."  Why do you think that was?  Because in the Jewish culture, the new day began at sundown.

As the old saying goes, "Tomorrow is a new day."  There is more truth to that adage than one would think.  God holds our sins against us until the day is done.  The next morning, "His mercies are new." (Lamentations 3:23).  Grace.  It makes me cry every time.  The beautiful thing is, we can show that same grace to each other, beginning with the people in our own family.

Don't get me wrong. We can't expect broken hearts to mend quickly.  My pastor said he's heard from more than one married couple in counseling that the man confessed infidelity, then demanded his wife forgive him right away, because Scripture says "don't let the sun go down on your anger." (Ephesians 4:26).  There are more regulations in the Law about being set "outside the camp" indefinitely (Leviticus 13) for being unclean.  Even a woman who gave birth was to be unclean for 33 days (Leviticus 12).  Some grace takes longer.  It is that same grace, the kind that takes longer, that is the most meaningful.  It will be remembered longer.

Every day there are people who fall in the mud, and their clothes are stained with dirt and grime.  There are those who by necessity have to work on a car motor so it will run, and their clothes are stained with grease and oil.  There are folks who get sick, and those who help the sick get well, who get their clothes stained with blood and vomit, urine and excrement.  You know what?  Those people wash their clothes, and wash themselves, and are right back at work the next day.  That's life.  I thought of life's dirty chores when I read Leviticus 11:39, 40:  "If an animal that you are allowed to eat dies, anyone who touches the carcass will be unclean until evening....Anyone who picks up the carcass must wash his clothes, and he will be unclean until evening."  After the day is done, you are clean again.  You get another chance to do the right thing.  You get grace.

Wonderful, merciful SaviorPrecious Redeemer and FriendWho would have thought that a LambCould rescue the souls of menOh you rescue the souls of men

Counselor, Comforter, KeeperSpirit we long to embraceYou offer hope when our hearts haveHopelessly lost the wayOhh, we hopelessly lost the way

You are the One that we praiseYou are the One we adoreYou give the healing and graceOur hearts always hunger forOhh, our hearts always hunger for

Almighty, infinite FatherFaithfully loving Your ownHere in our weakness You find usFalling before Your throneOhh, we're falling before Your throne

You are the One that we praiseYou are the One we adoreYou give the healing and graceOur hearts always hunger for

Ohh, our hearts always hunger for