A health teacher taught his students the importance of washing their hands before heating. But he didn’t merely repeat what their parents had told them hundreds of times. Instead, he had his students take scrapings from the ends of their finders and put them in an environment that fosters the growth of bacteria. A few days later, the students looked at the result through a microscope. There were critters from those fingers that might have given them sore throats, and fever or worse, if the students had eaten them with their dinner.
Many people who make sure they wash their hands before they eat are careless about a far more serious kind of contamination. They should listen to the advice of Isaiah. Just as the wise health teacher showed his students the evidence of possible physical problems, so Isaiah showed God’s people the visible evidence of their spiritual contamination. He pointed to their crumbling society and told them its downfall resulted from their moral and spiritual pollution. They were living for selfish rewards. They ignored justice and mercy. They loved things more than people. No wonder Isaiah exhorted them, “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean”!
Behind Isaiah’s words is the Heavenly Father’s love. God sees the danger of sin, and He points to its visible physical results. He pleads with us to be as careful with what we take into our hearts and minds as we are with what we put into our mouths. – Martin R. De Haan II
Lord, grant me grace throughout this day
To walk the straight and narrow way,
To do whatever in Your sight
Is good and perfect, just and right. – Huisman
Keep out of your life all that will Christ out of your mind.
- August 24, 1986, Our Daily Bread
For You 