Emergence

I'm always looking for simple ways to explain spiritual truths. Recently I came across one such illustration, and it's all summed up by this gross bucket of filthy water.

Twenty Buckets Worth

That's one of at least twenty such buckets that came out of the machine I used to steam clean my white living room carpet. I cleaned that rug for hours, repeatedly filling the tank with hot water and detergent, then spraying, scrubbing and vacuuming over and over and over. And each time I drained the waste water tank the result was the same: filthy, black water.  

Worse, the outcome was the same no matter how many times I repeated the process. So basically at some point you just need to make a decision to stop cleaning, 'cause you're not about to run out of dirt any time soon, but life is too short to spend it cleaning your carpet.

If you think that's disgusting I agree with you. It is. But if you have ever done this chore (or paid someone else to do it and watched them ;-) you will know that my results are not unique.

The fact is we all live with an enormous amount of dirt in our carpets. And yet until it gets really bad, we hardly even notice it. In fact it's amazing how much dirt we live with without seeing it. But once you start cleaning, the amount of filth is amazing.

Unlimited Dirt

IMO this illustrates the spiritual truth (or doctrine) that Ryan spoke about this weekend, "total depravity." Simply put, total depravity means that no matter how highly we may think or feel about ourselves, there is no limit to the amount of "dirt" in our lives. In biblical terms this means that sin permeates everything in our lives. And no matter how hard or how long we scrub to clean ourselves up there's always more crud to be found.

Two Quick Applications

First, hearts are even harder to clean than carpets. We can't "clean up" by ourselves. Money, religion, stuff, or philosophy won't get us clean either. Trying to "be good" won't do because Isaiah 64 says that "All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags." In other words, compared to a perfect and holy God, even one speck of "dirt" is unacceptable.

So how do we get clean? Only Jesus can do that. 1 John 1:9 says "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Just how this happens is to us a mystery but, simply put, God "covers" the ugliness of our sin with the "clean" righteousness of Christ in order to accept us.

Second, those of us who follow Jesus must remember that even though our sins are forgiven (we are justified by Christ), our lives are still permeated by sin. It's way too easy to overlook that fact in daily life, especially if we have been following Christ for some time. We must continuously examine our lives in light of God's word and engage in frequent times of prayerful confession.

We don't do this in order to be re-justified or re-forgiven. We do this to keep the "dirt" from accumulating - ruining the image of Christ-likeness that God the Father seeks to develop in our lives (sanctification) - and to allow for an open, honest relationship with God to flourish.