Encouragement

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A song I learned as a child in Vacation Bible School: “I wish I had a little white box to put my spirit in. I’d take it out and” :::kiss kiss kiss::: “and I’d put it back again. I wish I had a little red box to put my Jesus in. I’d take Him out and” :::kiss kiss kiss::: “and I’d put Him back again. I wish I had a little black box to put the devil in. I’d take him out and” :::clap clap clap::: “and I’d put him back again.”

If you thought about sin as being a solid, something you could put in a little box like the children’s song, what color do you think it would be? Black? Gray? Multicolored? Of course, we use black for the devil. It is only natural since the Lord is LIGHT and anything outside the Lord is DARKNESS. My personal first instinct was to think sin would be black (darkness).

Now, I suppose this is one of many reasons the scriptures tell us that God’s thoughts are much higher than ours. He’s sure smarter than anyone I know! And He sure knows how to make sin disappear, even when LIGHT is shed on it... though, it isn’t darkness or black after all. Isaiah 1:18 says “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” Notice that He doesn’t call sin black. He calls it scarlet and crimson -- red!

Imagine that you are painting a sun catcher. You decide to paint the glass through both sides, intensifying the color. You are painting a dove. Of course, you’d paint the dove white. But on the other side, you paint it black. When the sun shines through the sun catcher, what color will the dove appear? Or imagine that you are looking at a black ball through clear-blue water. What color does the ball appear to be? Have you ever searched for something green in the grass or something that is clear on any other color? It’s rather difficult to see green on green or clear with another color behind it.

And that’s how it is with our sins. They are crimson. One day, Satan will attempt to judge us based upon our sins. And when he does, the Lord God will look at us and see red. But the red He will see will not be our sin. He will say to that old devil “I see only red -- the blood of My only Begotten, who covers the sins of man. I am not ignorant in that I do not know the sins of men. Rather, I have chosen to forget them, to toss them into the sea of forgetfulness. I cannot look upon sin. But I can look upon man, even on the once very sinful man, as long as his sins are covered in the sacrificial blood of My Son.”

It does not give us the right to continue in our sin, as to do so would be for Christ to have shed that precious, ruby-colored river in vain. It is, however, very comforting to know that the Lord knew in advance what color to paint our sins. And now, if some of us could just learn to stop reminding the Lord that we’ve sinned! I’d rather the darker red, the blood red, ruby red blood of Christ be the final coating on me, covering the lighter crimson colored sins of my past. My God is not colorblind! It’s simply that one cannot see red through red! And when we are dressed in our robes of bleached white, without spot or blemish, our sins will appear, as stated in Isaiah 1:18, as white as snow and wool.
© Joyce Pool

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