But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. - 1 John 1:7
Let me tell you a story about a little boy who used to play in the woods just a short distance away from the dilapidated hut that he lived in. His parents were too poor to buy him any toys, so he had to make do with whatever he could find.
One day, he chanced upon a stone that was unlike any he had ever seen. The polished surface of the stone glistened in his hands and winked at him each time he turned it around in the sunlight. It was his very own treasure and he loved it.
The boy did not dare to bring it back to his home as there was nowhere in the hut he could hide it. He decided to dig a deep hole under some bushes and hide his precious possession there.
The next day, the boy couldn’t wait to retrieve his stone and ran to its hiding place as soon as the sun arose. But when his fingers finally found the stone in its muddy hideaway, it was all mud-caked and dull, without any of the luster that he loved so much.
The boy took the stone to the stream and carefully dipped it in, allowing the dirt to be washed away. Finally, it was clean again and the boy’s heart swelled with pride at his treasured find. But all too soon, the time came for the boy to head home and he had to return the stone to its hiding place.
Every day, the boy would rush to the spot where he had hidden the stone. And every day, he would find its shiny surface smeared with mud and he would trek to the river some distance away to wash it.
This happened for a while before he decided to solve the problem permanently. That day, when it was almost time for him to head home, the little boy took his stone to a small waterfall and wedged it carefully between two rocks, right in the middle of the steady flow of the waterfall.
That night, the stone experienced a continual washing. And that little boy never had to wash the stone again. Every time he retrieved it, it gleamed in his hands, completely cleansed.
Beloved, when you were born again, you became a living stone whom God placed right under the waterfall of His Son’s blood. And today’s scripture shows us the effect of that continual cleansing of Jesus’ blood—it keeps us walking in the realm of light that His death has translated us into.
If you were to dig deeper into the rich treasures of God’s Word, you will find that in the Greek, the tense for the word cleanse in 1 John 1:7 denotes a present and continuous action, which means that from the moment you receive Christ, the blood of Jesus keeps on cleansing you.
This is why believers who have been translated from darkness by Jesus’ death are kept walking in the light even when they miss it and fail. As a believer, you are truly under a perpetual waterfall of His blood that keeps on cleansing you from all your sins.
You know that negative thought that you had a few minutes ago? Well, that has been cleansed too! Every thought that is not right, every action that is not correct, is washed away! You are always kept clean and forgiven and always walking in His light because of the continuous cleansing of Jesus’ blood!
Beloved, believing that you need to confess your sins all the time to be right with God will only make you more sin-conscious. But knowing that you are constantly under Jesus’ waterfall of His cleansing blood will keep you forgiveness-conscious. And knowing that you are forgiven of all your sins will give you the power to reign over every destructive habit and live a life of victory!
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