Swimming In The Murkiness of Sin

This past weekend, Tiffany and I helped chaperone the youth group’s trip to Lake Wedowee in Alabama. As it turns out, this lake is the location of two pretty significant and related lessons.

When I was youth-aged, I went to Wedowee for a weekend of lake fun. It was there I learned how important it is to wear sunscreen. I spent several hours out on a boat without it and got the worst sunburn of my life! I have the sun damage on my left arm to prove it! As I’ve gotten a little older and wiser, I wear sun screen religiously. And now, I’m supplementing my sun protection by wearing one of those nifty swim shirts, similar to what a surfer would wear. Lesson I.

This past weekend, prior to getting on the boat, I lathered up with an 85 SPF sunscreen. I then donned my swim shirt, which is solid white, to further protect my pasty-white torso. We then struck out on the boat for an afternoon of swimming, tubing, wakeboarding, etc. Once finished, we headed back to shore for the next slate of activities, which for me included lying around on a float – hard work to be sure! While Tiffany and I were swimming in the water, I made some comment about how clean the water appeared to be for lake water. She tacitly agreed and we continued our afternoon of leisure.

When our swimming session was completed, I made my way out of the water with Tiffany right behind me. Once I heaved myself out of the water, Tiffany was able to see my white swim shirt and commented on how dirty I was. I didn’t believe it until I actually pulled my shirt away from my body and saw how it was no longer white, but the color of a latte! While swimming in the lake, the murkiness of the water dyed my shirt a light brown! Returning home, I soaked it in a diluted bleach solution, but guess what? The shirt is still brown! Lesson II.

Having my swim shirt re-colored got me thinking about the murkiness of sin. While we are willingly swimming around in sin-stuff, we look around and think that all’s well. In fact, we look past what we’re really getting ourselves into and think that it isn’t so bad. In fact, it’s fun and probably even exciting. Not experiencing any immediate consequences, we get deceived into thinking that we are above the need to avoid whatever it is we’re doing. It’s all about deception, and while we’re enjoying ourselves, we are deceived that what we’re doing is a-ok. The problem, however, is that it isn’t a-ok, and we’re being tainted while note even knowing it. Quoth Scooby Doo, “Ruh Roh!”

Once tainted with sin, there is nothing we can do on our own to cleanse ourselves. We can try with all our Humpty-Dumptyesque efforts to wash the sin away, but we simply aren’t capable. We need some help. That’s where GOD comes in, because it is GOD alone who cleanses us from the stain of sin. “Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.” (Psalm 51.7)

GOD came to us in the person of Jesus Christ, and in Jesus’ sacrifice, broke the strangle-hold that sin has on us forever. In accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior of your life, you can receive the immeasurable blessings of eternal life that begins with the cleansing of sin. Revelation 7.15 tells us that those who believe in Jesus and follow Him will be able to wash their robes in the blood of the Lamb, making them white again—whiter than snow! It’s the blood of Christ that cleanses us better than any bleach ever could.

If you have been swimming in the murkiness of sin, thinking that you’re staying clean, be careful! The honest truth, though, is this applies to us all. Accepting Christ, however, cleanses you from the inside out, purifying you, making you whiter than snow. Accept GOD’s love for you. Embrace Jesus’ sacrifice on your behalf. Go to Him to be cleansed. The murkiness of sin stains even if you aren’t aware of it, but GOD alone makes you clean. So take a dip in the living water of GOD’s love! Get clean, stay that way, and may it change the way you live forever!!!