I read this recently in a sermon by Rob Rufus at the Grace and Glory website. It gives a wonderful picture of how we are always clean and righteous and cleansed of all sin before God. "We have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all...For by one offering He has PERFECTED FOR ALL TIME those who are sanctified...And their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember NO MORE." (Rom. 10:10, 14, 17)
"There was a little boy that lived in a poor village in a dilapidated hut and his parents could not pay for any toys or things for him to play with. So every day he would go out into the forest and he would play with things he could make and sticks and stuff. And one day he found this incredible gemstone. Shining, beautiful, attractive, just gleaming with internal light, reflecting. And he played with it all day. So he was just so entranced by it. But he realized, when I go home, there’s no where to hide this gemstone in my father’s hut. So he hid it in the ground in the mud. The next day he came back, took it out, and to his horror, of course, now it’s covered in mud, it’s dirty. It’s not shining, there’s no gleam, there’s no glory. So he had to walk to the river, and wash it and wash it, and wash it and eventually it had that beautiful gleam again and he was so happy. End of the day, had to hide it in the dirt again. Came back.
"Next morning. All dirty, had to take it, wash it. And he went through this process over and over again. And one day, the idea came to him and he went over to a water fall and he wedge this gemstone between two rocks in the center where the main flow of the waterfall was. And all through the night there was a continuous present tense washing of the stone so when he came the next morning, and picked up the stone, it was shining in all it’s beauty.
"The first half of that story describes the old covenant people. Getting. Sinning. Dirty. Cleansed. Restore fellowship. Dirty, cleansed. The last part of that story describes the new covenant. You are righteous forever. The blood of Jesus continuously cleanses and purifies you from all sin. So every second, every moment of every day, you are absolutely clean, and pure, and righteous before the father. That’s why some of us are shocked when the anointing comes on us just after we’ve made a mistake. Because, you see, the father sees you all the time as clean and as holy.
Give up trying to maintain your forgiveness by your efforts and just let the extravagance of God’s waterfall of forgiveness just flow over your life....you will understand, “I am so perfectly clean and righteous all the time.” So every time I pray, my prayers are one target with God. And He hears me every time for his ears are over the prayers of the righteous. And I am the righteousness of God through the obedience of the one man. I am forever in right standing with the Father.
"I don’t care of you fall back into an old habit. I don’t care if you do something you don’t want to do and you do it. I don’t care if you had a bad attitude. I don’t care if you have a bad feeling. I don’t care how bad your sin was, get up, you’re under a fountain. When you fall, when you fail under a fountain, the fountain does not fail, it keeps coming over you. You are clean, you are righteous in Him. The more you believe this, the more victory you will have over sinning. Come on now, say amen. Give Him a shout just for the heaven of it."
Rob Rufus
