Day 16 in the wilderness: Stay clean.

“He set the laver between the tabernacle of meeting and the altar, and put water there for washing; and Moses, Aaron, and his sons would wash their hands and their feet with water from it. Whenever they went into the tabernacle of meeting, and when they came near the altar, they washed, as the Lord had commanded Moses.”

‭‭Exodus‬ ‭40:30-32‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

Surprisingly, until the mid-1800s, doctors would go from doing things such as dissecting cadavers to delivering babies without washing their hands. We can hardly believe that this was the case! How did they not know they needed to wash their hands? Well, up until this time, many thought that it was actually the odors of things (miasma) that spread a disease or an infection. Now, I don’t imagine that any of them went from one task to another with hands visibly dirty or bloodied; but, they probably thought that wiping their hands off was sufficient. They had not yet learned about germs and that these germs spread infection. It would be an Hungarian medic (Ignaz Semmelweis) who would make the connection between high childbirth mortalities and unwashed hands.

We’ve just been through a pandemic where handwashing was brought back into focus. And, I’m sure you’ll be glad to know that this is not an exhortation about handwashing. But it is an exhortation concerning the need to be cleansed.

Before we come to the Lord, we are burdened down with our sin; its ravages are woven through every aspect of our lives. But thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ, we are regenerated into a new creation. We are given a clean spirit!

“Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”

‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭10:19-22‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

However, when we are washed from our sins by the precious blood of Jesus Christ, we do not experience a brain or memory washing. We remember everything we ever did that was wrong. We remember every hurt we experienced at the hands of others. Every failure, disappointment, grief, and hurt are ready to be reconstituted in the theater of our minds. And, the enemy of our souls seeks to re-infect our lives with all that has ever happened to us, or all we have ever done, by bringing it up for our consideration.

What I have just shared could be very discouraging if we thought there was no way to escape the hidden treachery of our past, tucked away waiting to be manifested through our ways of being, doing, and thinking.

Thanks be to God that He has provided a way for us to overcome the influence of the carnal (or unchanged) mind by way of His word. As we focus our hearts and minds on the word of God, and walk in obedience to it, that word cleanses us and reinforces us against the enemy within: our own predispositions and experience.

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word,”

‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭5:25-26‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

Today we see that Moses,

Aaron, and Aaron’s sons, made sure they were clean (as the Lord had instructed them) before they came into the Presence of the Lord.

Bear in mind, they were living in the wilderness, and as such, had limited access to water. Even still, in obedience to God, this washing would occur before they approached the Lord.

“Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”

‭‭James‬ ‭4:8‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

The above scripture is only one of many in which the word of God tells us to cleanse ourselves and to approach the Lord with holy hands. Yet, we know that in ourselves, we don’t have the cleansing agent to make (keep) ourselves clean. But, what we do have, is the ability to APPLY the word of God (like hand-sanitizer) to our lives. Said differently, we cleanse ourselves (stay clean) by applying God’s soap, His word, through our obedience to it.

This world is a dusty, dirty, wilderness. It may seem that you are sometimes trying to stay clean in a cesspool. But remember, the Lord has provided a way for us to be cleansed from all our sins by the blood of Jesus Christ. Having accepted His blood as the remedy for our sin, we must walk in obedience to the word of God, thereby staying truly clean, and not just wiping off our hands.

For today write this in your “wilderness journal”:

Stay clean.

#40daysinthewilderness