Truth To Wonder: conversation for christ

As the Spring sunshine makes itself known, many busy households are taking the opportunity to refresh the paint on outdoor walls, doors, sheds and fences. I undertook a similar task amidst the still chilly Spring sunshine, when I looked to repaint our wooden gates near our front door. 

After some consideration on what colour to paint the gates, I settled on a modern, mid-grey specialist fence paint from a well known company. On getting home, I broke out the paintbrush and set to work. It was to my frustration however, when after a couple of coats of this specialist wood and fence paint, I saw next to no difference made to the colouring of the wooden gates. The old and patchy brown colouring of the gates was still clear as day, leaving only slight traces of the grey paint on a few areas of the wood. 

As the coats of paint began to mount up, so too did my annoyance at the poor effect the new paint was having on the fence. The paint would apply nicely, and the colour gave promise of a clean and stylish look. Only a few minutes later, that vivid colour faded into the wood once again, leaving the old, patchy brown colouring once more.

Stepping back to give my arm a break from the painting motion, I thought on how this frustrating enterprise reflected a Biblical truth. We have all at some point looked to cover up our sins with good deeds and self-righteous efforts. We have hoped that these noble actions will be that fresh and clean covering of what we know our hearts to be, grubby, dirty and unpleasant to consider.

So, we set about with vim and vigour to make ourselves better, cleaner, fresher and more appealing through our self-motivated efforts. We busily apply the first coat or two of positive changes to our lives and step back in hope of seeing a lovely, fresh new heart looking back at us. However, what we see is exactly what I saw when I looked at those wooden gates; a heart whose deep stains of sin continue to protrude through the thin coat of paint that is our self-motivated efforts. 

Being annoyed at this clear failure of my endeavours to cover up what was dirty and unsightly, I went and added further coats of paint to the gates. Each time I applied a new coat, I looked at it and thought, ‘That should do it.’ Yet when a few minutes passed and the paint dried a touch, the same problem emerged once more. This is again like our own hearts, when we stubbornly press on in trying to remove the stain of sin from our lives by our own efforts. With each new venture of self-attempted sin removal, we have a temporary hope that maybe this good deed, this new lifestyle choice will do the trick; however, we soon realise that it has failed once again. That old colouring of sin pushes through still.

Those wooden gates gave me (and still are giving me!) immense frustration. I genuinely believed that after the seventh coat, the wood was now firmly grey. However, the next morning was a truly bright and sunny one, and those warm rays landed gently on the gates and showed that the dirty, old brown colour was still visible! A sigh of exasperation left my lungs, as in my physical exhaustion from the painting, I had a mind to just accept the patchy finish and say, ‘Who cares. That’ll do.’ So many people take the same approach with their souls. They try and they try to make themselves ‘better people’, and they look to do good works to get rid of the stains of sins they know they carry. Yet when their tiring efforts have rendered no true cleansing and refreshing of the soul, they slump into spiritual despondency. Here they give up and say to themselves, ‘Who cares. That’ll do.’ 

Such lives miss a mighty truth that is calling out to them in their moment of exhaustion and frustration. That truth is that God cares! He cared so much that He gave His only begotten Son so that we might not perish! (John 3:16) He cares so much and cries out to us that our efforts won’t do! That is why that bright and pure light of Christ, illuminates the still stained heart of those who believe they can save themselves from their sins. God does not want you to accept an eternity cut off from Him forever in Hell, caused by those sins, and so He sent that light to highlight a desperate need. A need to have that old, sin-stained heart not just covered up poorly with self-righteous deeds; but to have a brand-new heart! A heart reborn in the Lord Jesus! A heart truly clean and fresh, one shows only the pure colour of salvation. A colour that is held in the purity of the blood of the Lamb of God. A colour so pure that even under the brightest of lights, it shows no patches missed, no stain of even the smallest sin remaining. Such a reborn heart is at last worthy to take it’s place in Heaven.

So that wooden gate caused a lot of frustration and physical pain/exhaustion. However, in that frustration, pain and exhaustion, I saw a reminder of how amazing it is to know that my sins are not just poorly covered up by Christ Jesus, but that they are truly removed.