Romans 5:8 – But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
One ordinary day years ago, I decided on a whim to go upstairs to see how the younger kids were progressing with learning to do their new chores. It had actually been a couple of months since I had been upstairs (gasp!), so the time was ripe. I was happy to see that their bedrooms were passable. The hallway was vacuumed. The shelves were in order. I was pleased with what I saw – until I went into the bathroom. In the bathroom, I was greeted by this ghastly sight –
Truthfully, I wanted to replace the toilet on the spot! My stomach turns even now at the memory of it. After much soaking, many chemicals, long sessions on my knees hunched over the toilet with my hands inside that awful abyss (ew!) expending way more elbow grease than I thought I had in me, the toilet was clean.
We are like the upstairs toilet. We are dirty. We are stained with sin. We are unable to make ourselves clean. The Good News is that we don’t have to be! God didn’t wait for us to be cleaned up, sparkling & white, before He reached out to us. He did it while we were still sinners through His one and only son, Jesus.
PONDER: Have you been made clean or are you waiting until you’ve cleaned up your life before turning to God?
The Upstairs Toilet is one of thirty devotionals I’ve been asked to write this year as part of a friend’s year-long devotional project. You can read more short devotionals like this by clicking here or the Devotionals tab at the top of this page.