Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Taking Out The Trash

Where I grew up we had a trash room. We lived on the 15th floor of an apartment building and I, or one of my siblings, would take the trash to this room down the hall and open a bin door in the wall of the trash room and put the trash bags in. Then the trash bag would drop some distance and be disposed of with all the other trash by men who worked in the building. Once we let go of that bag and closed the bin door that trash was gone. We heard the bag falling but we were to high up to hear the thud. As a young boy I would listen for it but I don't think I ever heard it.

I was thinking this morning about letting things go and forgiveness.

"I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist; return to me, for I have redeemed you." - Isaiah 44:22 ESV

When the cross is my mental trash bin then what I bring there need never be seen again. What if I just drop things as I go? Then they just blow around like trash on a congested urban street. It gathers and forms like a floating island at the center of the ocean. When my trash is not burned up at the cross I either keep it or it litters my world in some way that is seen by me, by others or both.

We may not hear the thud at the cross but we know what we brought there is gone forever.

"For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross." - Colossians 1:19-20 ESV

"For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." - 1 Corinthians 1:17-18 ESV

We may be conscious of the need to forgive but we still need someone to collect what we have discarded and take it away. God did that at the cross.

"As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us." - Psalm 103:12 ESV

I am so glad for that. It makes my life a clean happy place.

---

No comments:

Post a Comment