God's Laundromat

The other day I was helping my wife with the laundry. She does the VAST majority of it, for which I am very thankful. I just transfer things from the washer to the dryer once in a while and bring the hamper full of dirty clothes down from the bathroom to the basement. While recently engaged in the latter activity, I began to sort the laundry into the baskets, to hopefully make her job a little easier. My sorting skills generally are limited to separating lights from darks. It made me think: "Hmm...This is basically what God does, too."





He sorts the light from the dark. He separated the light from the darkness in the beginning and that is what He will do in the end.



So what kind of load are you? Are you light, or are you dark? Mind you, even the light loads have stains that can only be washed clean in the blood of the lamb. Not even Billy Mays and Oxi Clean can promise the kind of sparkling white Jesus' blood provides the true believer.



I've struggled lately with concerns about my own salvation. The world crashes in and takes hold for a while and I start to wonder if I'm still okay with the Lord. He works in mysterious ways, as they say, and I don't think it has been any coincidence that my pastor's sermons these last two or three weeks have been about this very kind of thing.



We're studying Hebrews. The basic gist is that: "Yes. you are still saved even if you screw up - if you repent of your sin and continue to fight against falling again. The point at which you're in real trouble is the point at which you no longer care about your sin. If it no longer bothers you, and you're not sorry for it, then you in serious danger. To paraphrase pastor's message: If you're worried about whether you have committed the unpardonable sin, you haven't.




I'm reminded of a cartoon I saw in the paper, once. In the Lord of the Rings, Gandalf the Grey returns from death as Gandalf the white. In the newpaper comic, Gandalf stands before a Hobbit and introduces himself. "I am Gandalf the Pink." he says. "The colors ran in the wash."



God sees all the embarrassing and unfortuntate stains. He washes them all clean, when we confess Him as Lord. We can be washed in Christ's blood. Not pink. Bright white from the blood of the Lamb.