My experience with chocolate can best be described as a love/hate relationship.
My children and grandchildren know I’ll receive with joy boxes of my favorite chocolates for Christmas or other holidays. Occasionally, I’ll share some pieces of candy, but more often than not I keep the box for myself. I love to enjoy two pieces of chocolate as my dessert when I sit in my recliner and watch the evening news on TV. Later, however, I regret having done so.
I’m not talking about putting on extra pounds. My rail-thin frame could use a few of them. What I do regret comes in a more subtle form. After sending my clothes through the washer, they usually look spotless. But then minute chocolate flakes explode in the dryer, creating horrifying brown patterns that are difficult at best, or even impossible, to remove.
Could this be like sin in my life?
During the pandemic shutdown—when my church wasn’t meeting—I watched a televangelist one Sunday afternoon discussing the sin of pride. Mentally, I hoped my open-book life revealed no trace of that. However, before the program finished, I said to myself, “Well, this evangelist makes as many grammatical errors on air as he did in his book.” Then it hit me—I was exhibiting pride in my knowledge of correct English usage and failing to rejoice that someone was teaching the Bible to thousands of watchers.
That sin was highly recognizable, but others in my life are not. Having grown up in the church, many probably think my life is saintly, but how wrong they are. My thoughts, words, and actions could be much better.
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. This Scripture has the remedy for all sin: confess and ask for forgiveness. Unlike scrubbing hard-to-get-out spots, these sin blemishes can be completely removed at once.
Like the joy I experience when I receive a box of chocolates, I feel exuberant knowing I’m not bound by my mistakes. I’ll certainly make more because of my humanness, but they will not become burdensome. For now, I’m free.
Have you let Christ remove your hidden spots?
(Photo courtesy of pixabay.)
(For more devotions, visit Christian Devotions.)
Eunice Porter is a retired State of Oregon employee, who in retirement has written devotions for several booklets and lengthier articles for both Christian and secular publications. She is active in her church as back-up organist, serves as a volunteer at the Oregon State Capitol, and keeps her mind busy through learning at a retirees’ class at Willamette University. She can be reached at grandmaoe@gmail.com.