Doing the Washing
Read Psalm 51
You know the story behind Psalm 51. David had fallen into horrible sin, even to the point of having an innocent man murdered. He tried to cover his sin for nearly a year, but then God found him and David’s heart broke with this prayer of confession. There is only one prayer a believer can pray when his sin is before him: “Wash me!”
But cleansing should not stop there. In Isaiah 1:16 the Lord says, “Wash you, make you clean.” In other words, it is up to us to put out of our lives the things that displease the Lord. “Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit” (2 Cor. 7:1). We must not expect the Lord to do this for us. If our hearts are truly repentant, we will put away sin from our lives.
There is yet a third step: wash one another. In John 13:12-17, Jesus taught His disciples to wash one another’s feet; that is, to show humility one to another and seek to help our fellow saints keep clean. In Acts 16:33 the newly saved jailer washed the apostles’ wounds! What blessings would come to our homes and churches if only God’s people would cleanse the wounds they have caused in the lives of others!
Wash me–wash yourself–wash one another. The one experience naturally lends to the other. It’s just a matter of getting started.
(Copyright, Warren W. Wiersbe. First appeared in Thoughts for Men on the Move. May not be copied or reproduced without express written permission of the author.)
Dr. Warren Wiersbe (1929-2019) was an internationally known Bible teacher, author, and conference speaker. He graduated in 1953 from Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in Lombard, Illinois. While attending seminary, he was ordained as pastor of Central Baptist Church in 1951 and served until 1957. From September 1957 to 1961, Wiersbe served as Director of The Literature Division for Youth for Christ International. From 1961 to 1971 he pastored Calvary Baptist Church of Covington, Kentucky south of Cincinnati, Ohio. His sermons were broadcast as the “Calvary Hour” on a local Cincinnati radio station. From 1971 to 1978, He served as the pastor of Moody Church in Chicago 1971 to 1978. While at Moody Church he continued in radio ministry. Between August 1979 and March 1982, he wrote bi-weekly for Christianity Today as “Eutychus X”, taught practical theology classes at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, and wrote the course material and taught a Doctor of Ministry course at Trinity and Dallas Seminary. In 1980 he transitioned to Back to the Bible radio broadcasting network where he worked until 1990. Dr. Wiersbe became Writer in Residence at Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids and Distinguished Professor of Preaching at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary. In his lifetime, Dr. Wiersbe wrote over 170 books—including the popular Be series, which has sold over four million copies. Dr. Wiersbe was awarded the Gold Medallion Lifetime Achievement by the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA).
