Life is a cruel teacher. About the time you figure out how to play, the game changes!
One day while watching mom mix a cake I figured out that her beautiful German Chocolate cakes were made out of little chocolate chips. What a discovery! We had chocolate in the pantry all this time. Anytime I got hungry for candy all I would have to do was sneak over and grab a hand-full of chocolate chips. This was going to be a young man’s dream. At my first convenience I did just that. Making my hand into a fist I let the whole handful of tiny morsels fall into my mouth between my thumb and index finger. To my disgust the long awaited reward was bitter! You can only imagine how horrible unsweetened bitter chocolate can be to a young man! I ran outside and spit the mouthful of disappointment onto the grass closely inspecting it for bugs… at least trying to understand what had gone wrong. It was then I realized that the bitter taste was still in my mouth, even though I had rejected the contents, causing me to pucker up!
People wonder what to do when they have tasted sin, spit it out, but still the aftertaste gnaws in their memory like a temptation. We can pray about it and the experience of sin is still there. We can talk to someone else about it and with each discussion the temptation is back. We can try to forget it, but it is still there like a giant pink elephant. Each time we promise ourselves “I will not think about that again” we think about it again! Only one thing will rinse your pallet clean. Only one thing will break through the bitter disgust of personal mental and spiritual guilt! Only one thing. We must sit down and read the Bible. The Scriptures, under the power of the Holy Spirit, re-formats the hard drive of our memory. Like loosening grease with hand cleaner followed by soap and hot water, only the Bible will cleanse our minds and restore peace. We must embed ourselves in the stories and visualize Jesus saying to us, “Be clean.”
As the investigative judgement draws to a close throw out the trash. Have your conscience sprinkled and live in harmony with God – “I will, be thou clean.”
