Make a Clean Sweep

 ²¹ "Remember these things, O Jacob,
       for you are my servant, O Israel.
       I have made you, you are my servant;
       O Israel, I will not forget you.
 ²² I have swept away your offenses like a cloud,
       your sins like the morning mist.
       Return to me,
       for I have redeemed you."
 ²³ Sing for joy, O heavens, for the LORD has done this;
       shout aloud, O earth beneath.
       Burst into song, you mountains,
       you forests and all your trees,
       for the LORD has redeemed Jacob,
       he displays his glory in Israel."  Isaiah 44:21-23

So often we hear, when I get my act together, I'll go to church.  When I get over this ________ (addiction, attitude, fill in the blank!), I'll come back to God.  Where have we ever gotten the idea that God wants us to get "right" first, and then come to Him?

I think I know some of where it comes from.  We don't want this big holy God to see what a mess we are.  We allow ourselves to forget that He already knows!  (We're awfully dumb, aren't we?)  We think that we come to God as messes, He is disgusted with us, shaking His head at us, at having to "fix" us again.

God is disgusted with sin, not with us.  Let me say that again - HE IS DISGUSTED WITH SIN!!  In our humanness, we can't distinguish between the two.  We say, I am a sinner.  God hates sin so He must hate me. 

I'll admit, I've been there.  Often.  I can't understand how God could love me.  Yucky, icky, unclean me.  I don't understand how He, at the very least, isn't exasperated by my shortcomings, faults, and weaknesses.  When I hang on to those precepts about my Creator, I'm completely ignoring what His word tells me.

His word says that He is strong when I am weak.  That my faults can be used for His glory.  And that He longs to use His broom on me, as the scripture says above:  "I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you."  Don't you hear the longing?  He's saying, I have already forgiven you.  Come back to me!  I want you, I love you, I'm here for you.

Romans 8:38-39 says,  "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."  NOTHING can separate us from His love.

Don't get me wrong.  Sin can keep us separated from a relationship with Him, if that's what we choose.  But NOTHING separates His love from us.  In other words, there is nothing we can do to make Him stop loving us!

It's His joy to sweep away our sin!  Remember the words to this song today:

 

I will never be the same again,
I can never return, I’ve closed the door.
I will walk the path, I’ll run the race
And I will never be the same again.

Fall like fire, soak like rain,
Flow like mighty waters, again and again.
Sweep away the darkness, burn away the chaff,
And let the flame burn to glorify Your name.

There are higher heights, there are deeper seas,
Whatever you need to do, Lord do in me.
The Glory of God fills my life,
And I will never be the same again.

I will never be the same again – Hillsong United