Washed as white as snow...

As the country has been coated with a beautiful sheet of whiter than white snow over this past week I have had this verse on my mind and in my heart. Isaiah 1:18 “ Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the LORD, “Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be as wool."

I praise God every morning as I trudge out into the snow, and see a world that is clean, no evidence of the dirt that was there a week ago, no proof of the dying leafless trees that were there, now just a world coated with this shimmery clean, white beauty that we call snow! I praise God that just like this dark grey world has been coated with a clean beauty, so we too have been washed as white as snow! What an awesome thing, to know that there is no evidence of our past ‘greyness’ when we are alive in Christ, what a freedom that knowledge brings! 

My deepest sadness in this knowledge, is that there are people in our lives, everywhere we look—who have absolutely no idea what it means to be washed as white as snow! They live in a constant greyness, unaware of the freedom that is available to them! And missing out on the Joy that the freedom brings! While its all too easy to get caught up in our own lives and busyness, we need to remember the severity of people not knowing the truth. How can we know the truth, rejoice in the truth, be set free in the truth, but yet, not share the truth? The joy we know from being washed as white as snow, should overflow from our lives into the lives of those around us. Our freedom and joy should be evident in our actions and our words, in everything we do, in the love that we show. 

People are hungry for the truth, we as Christians know what they need to be filled, but if we withhold that—then we are guilty of letting them starve. We KNOW what they need, but we watch them starve.
I have been challenged a lot recently about being bolder and bolder with the truth, not just in the easy places.. God has set in my heart a real urgency in making the Gospel known. 

I pray that you would be challenged where you are to be bold in your faith, I pray that the grace that was shown you when you were washed white as snow, would compel you to want others to know the freedom that brings...Lets feed the hungry, and let us be purposeful in doing it, it is after all our calling as Christians!