When you have been outside working and it’s 100° in the Texas heat there is nothing more refreshing than diving into the swimming pool or taking a shower and getting all cleaned up. It’s like becoming a brand new person. There’s nothing like going from being all hot, sticky, stinky, and sweaty to being cool, clean and smelling gooooood.
Before we become Christians we are condemned sinners who need to be cleansed by the blood of the Lamb. When we accept the grace of God by faith we are baptized into Christ and we are born again. Ananias told Saul of Tarsus, “And now why do you delay? Arise, and be baptized, and WASH away your sins, calling on His name” (Acts 22:16). After we become Christians we need daily cleansing from our sins as we walk (imperfectly) by faith. John writes, “but if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (I John 1:7). And again, “…These who are clothed in the white robes, who are there, and from where have they come? …he said to me, these are the ones who have come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Revelation 7:13-14).
Not only can we say goodbye to our sins when we become Christians, we can say goodbye to our sins every day; however, isn’t is spiritually ironic that it was easy accepting our forgiveness when we were baptized into Christ, but when it comes to accepting our daily forgiveness from the Lord we aren’t quite as quick to accept it and rejoice? I want all of us to SAY GOODBYE to yesterday every single day as we walk by faith.
Read I John 3:1-10; 5:10-13. Then listen to Say Goodbye by Mandisa. Then say hello to Jesus and goodbye to the old self.
1 John 3:1-10
See how great a love the Father has given us, that we would be called children of God; and in fact we are. For this reason the world does not know us: because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope set on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.
Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness. You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin. No one who remains in Him sins continually; no one who sins continually has seen Him or knows Him. Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. No one who has been born of God practices sin, because His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin continually, because he has been born of God. By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother and sister.
1 John 5:10-13