Hidden!

        The ancient cliff dwellers of Arizona had a peculiar way of cleaning house.  The smoke of their fires filled their odd stone dwellings and covered their walls with a black layer of soot and when this became intolerable, they did not wash it off but calmly went to work plastering over it with a fresh coat of white mortar.  Investigators have found no less than eleven such coats of soot and mortar, one above the other, which suggests that the dwellers had eleven housecleaning days spread out over a period of many years. 
        We smile and think how peculiar, but most people live their lives in the same manner.  Many houses have 3 or 4 layers of paint or wall paper, one over the other.  But what is even more troubling is the way people keep their inner house.  Instead of doing a thorough soul cleaning, rubbing, scraping, digging, washing until every fault and sin is removed and hauled to the dump, they whitewash themselves to look good on the outside, leaving the crud of their past life to fester.  Their whitewash is a temporary fix.  On the outside they seem to look clean and fresh, but if they are scratched anywhere the dirt beneath the surface is exposed. 
        This definitely explains how a person can go for years as a successful businessman then suddenly be found out to be a debauch offender who shocks the world.  People ask, “How could he commit such a heinous crime?  He was such a respectable example in our community!”  Well, what was covered up finally came to the surface.  The whitewash made him look good for a time, but the real person eventually bled through. 
        Hundreds of programs are started every year to help people cover-up their dirt.  But deep down inside of them they are fighting the demons that rage to manifest.  I have discovered that many of the talk-it-out therapy groups are doing nothing but covering up the soot.  The only power strong enough to cleanse a person from the things that plague him is the blood of Jesus Christ.  It has unlimited power to break the chains that bind, remove the old life, and make us brand new. 
        Many people are trying to get rid of bad habits the way some destroy the spider’s web without destroying the spider.  Common sense tells us that we have to go to the source to get rid of the problem. 
        What would you think of a doctor who, on discovering you had a tumor buried deep in your body, responded, “Take two aspirin, talk about it to others, you’ll be just fine?”  Or a fireman who responds to a three-alarm fire by saying, “Ah, it’ll be alright.  It will burn itself out.”  In each case the response is inappropriate to the situation.  We would demand more serious action.  The radical action that Jesus Christ took on Calvary was just for this purpose: to cleanse us, transform us, make us brand new sons of God.  And if we will only believe in His action then receive personally what He did, we will be truly changed and made brand new.

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