On Whitewash & Fences

Have you ever read Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer ? The reason I ask is I wonder if you remember the scene where Tom is supposed to be painting the fence. In that particular passage, it is a beautiful summer day and Tom has been given the task by his aunt to paint their fence. The fence is thirty yards long and nine feet high and when Tom surveyed it "all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit". Tom, as you might recall, comes up with an ingenious plan in which he persuades others to join in his "fun". In fact, Tom even lets them pay for the privilege!

Can I just give it to you straight?

Jesus is not Tom Sawyer! Uh, no, that would be the other guy.

Yet somehow far too many people think the role of Aunt Polly is played by God, Tom by Jesus, and we are the friends who get to pitch in and help Tom with his work.

Don't believe me?

Then explain to me "The Sinner's Prayer", the practice of ongoing confession of sin, and its supposed result- forgiveness.

It's as if we really believe that God sent Jesus to start a work, that of "whitewashing our sins", and he made a pretty good start, he got those pesky past ones, but somehow the responsibility of finishing the work got shifted to us somewhere along the way.

There are several errors in that thinking. First: Jesus didn't "whitewash" any sins. His blood didn't so much as "cover" our sins, which is what the blood of animals did, His blood eradicated them! Gone. Ka-put. History. Second: Jesus reconciled the entire world to God not by just dying for our sins, but by becoming sin and putting it to death in His body. In other words, God doesn't deal with sins on a case by case basis. He doesn't pull out Jesus' blood and apply it to our dirty, old "fence" every time we hit our knees. The condition known as sin was dealt with at the cross, once and for all time. Third: Because the condition known as sin was dealt with, the acts known as sins were forgiven-all of them. Past, present, and future. Let's face it, folks. When Jesus died on the cross, all our sins were in the future, unless you are reaaally well preserved!

So what am I saying? I'm saying we have an enemy who loves to deceive us into thinking that Jesus made a fairly decent start on redemption, but that He left something for us to do, also. We have swallowed the lie that our lives are nothing more than an endless cycle of conviction of sins, repentance, confession, and the redoubling of our efforts. Or not. Because, the truth is, some people are so thrilled by the idea of repentance, confession, and forgiveness that they are happy to settle for that. These are the people who have absolutely no idea that Jesus didn't come to just punch our get out of hell free card, but to give us HIS LIFE.

Picture the Christian life, JESUS' Life, reduced to a perpetual Groundhog Day movie scenario. Life becomes nothing more than an endless loop of "whitewashing" our old man over and over again until death releases us to become, what, something angelic in the great by and by? Or maybe we think life is nothing more than a proving ground where we constantly better ourselves by learning from our mistakes. You know, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again, and again, and again...

Not exactly.

See, Jesus finished the work that was set before Him at the cross. He redeemed mankind leaving nothing further for us to do but receive His Life in exchange for our pseudo-life in Adam, which was just death masquerading as life.

That means we weren't left with a yucky old "fence" that we have to repaint and repaint. Nor must we repent and repent. NO!!! We can change our mind once about our need for a savior and
recive all that we need for Life and Godliness: JESUS!

I don't care how smooth talking our enemy is: work is work and Jesus didn't leave any for us to do. We don't have to go to "church", pay a tithe, say any Hail Mary's, or anything else to become partakers of His life or to keep it. We only have to believe. Believe in what HE did, not us.

Jesus did not DIE to extend us the honor of holding a dang paintbrush in our hand with which we can paint ourselves a lovely shade of self-righteousness.

He did not die to apply external restraints to our behavior or to whitewash it!

Jesus died so that we could die in Him and have eternity on the inside of us! All the fullness of God dwelling, residing, habitating in us!

Beloved, life is not an endless vista of Saturdays meant to be spent "painting" ourselves clean.

Life IS an invitation to accept that we are clean and to LIVE LOVED!

Life is calling. Who will you believe? The man with the paintbrush in his hand or the Man with Nail Scars in His?