My hands weren’t clean, but I imagined they were. But what I needed was clean hands and a clean heart.
CLEAN HANDS
“Wash up for dinner” was a directive I rarely heard growing up. It wasn’t that my family was nasty. Far from it. Both of my parents were “clean freaks.” At least my mom. But for some reason, I don’t remember my parents telling me to wash my hands before eating. Perhaps because they knew they were never dirty in the first place. In their mind, I had already washed them for some other reason. See, I had inherited my parents’ cleanliness gene. I didn’t like dirt or anything sticky on my hands.
But my parents also believed a few germs would never hurt anyone–common before COVID-19. Germs would help build my immune system—which, in fact, was a correct philosophy on my parents’ part. If I wanted to play in the dirt or handle dirty things and then eat, that was perfectly acceptable. Or if I dropped food on the floor or the ground and then put it in my mouth, that too was okay—within limits. My parents weren’t neglectful. Nor would they ever put me in a dangerous situation.
Overall, I was a clean child, so there was no need to overly worry about cleaning me up. The psalmist considered himself clean—even righteous. But he wasn’t self-righteous. God had taken care of his sin and declared him clean. He would also deliver him from his enemies’ tactics. The coming deliverance wasn’t based on anything the psalmist had done—or deserved. It was based solely on who God was.
CLEAN HEART
My righteousness comes the same way as the psalmist’s did. “Therefore, the Lord has recompensed me according to my righteousness, According to the cleanness of my hands in His sight” (Psalm 18:24 NKJV).
I don’t brag about my righteousness because I didn’t do anything to deserve it. Nor is it based on anything I did or could do. Instead, my righteousness issues from what Christ did on Calvary’s cross and my request that He apply the benefits to my life. God declared me righteous because of what His sinless Son did.
God will deliver me in life and death because I’m righteous, but all the credit goes to Him. I can’t wash up, but He can clean me up.
Let God wash and make you clean if He hasn’t already. He can give you clean hands and a clean heart.
–Photo by Dimitri Kolpakov on Unsplash
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