Showcasing a new home helps it sell faster and for more money. Professionals set out beautiful things in the most attractive ways possible. Furniture is arranged in the most appealing configuration, and the table is set with crystal and china. We want people to see the home in the best light imaginable, to be able to picture themselves living inside and enjoying every minute.
From time to time, however, we will be required to polish inquisitive fingerprints off our beautiful things. After all, our prospective buyers don’t want to imagine cleaning the things sitting around. They want to imagine using them.
Yet, what if they step to the table, and inside the dishware they find a layer of dust? Perhaps coffee stains in the cups, and meat scraps lining the platter? Polishing the outside improves our appearance from a distance, yet when we get close, it’s the inside that tells if our home is truly clean.
Matthew 23:25-26 gives us Jesus’ words:
“Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. You blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter that the outside of them may be clean also.”
In our model home, when we take the decorative dishware from the table and dip it in the sink, we need to scour the inside first. The water will also soak the outside, washing away fingerprints, dust, and other residue.
Our spiritual lives are the same. Once we immerse ourselves in Jesus, he’ll scour the sin of this world from us. At the same time, his cleansing power will change us on the outside. We’ll become clean. Our sinful behaviors will fall away. The world will look at us and see a different person, one shining with the glory of Christ, brilliant and spotless as we’ve never been before.
We’ll become what God originally intended for us to be, an example of the best he can provide, someone the world desires to emulate; and we will draw the sinner unto Christ.
When God washes the inside clean, the outside will sparkle and shine, also.
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Code: FGO.B.12.16.vp.kjv