Just Mud

Read: John 13:3-10; 1 John 1:5-9

“Hudson!” Mom’s voice startled him as he stepped into the kitchen. “Look at your shoes!” Hudson looked down at his feet and then at the trail of mud behind him. “How did your shoes get so dirty?” Mom asked.

Hudson shrugged. “I was just outside.”

“Well, please go back outside and clean off your shoes.”

A few minutes later, Hudson came back, and he and Mom wiped up the dirt. “I’m sorry, Mom,” Hudson said.

Mom smiled. “No harm done. I know it was an accident. It’s pretty easy to get dirt on your shoes without knowing it, isn’t it?”

Hudson nodded. “I still don’t know how they got so dirty.”

“Well, at least it was just mud—not sin,” Mom said. Hudson looked puzzled. “Getting your shoes dirty with mud is a little like getting your life dirty with sin,” Mom explained. “We talked about that at church this morning, remember? Sometimes you don’t even think about what you’re doing, and then you suddenly realize that something you’ve done wasn’t right.”

“Does that ever happen to you?” asked Hudson.

“Yes. When I mess up, it’s like my life has gotten dirty with sin. And do you know what I have to do then? To get clean again?”

Hudson thought about it. “Jesus would have to clean up the sin, wouldn’t He?”

“That’s right,” Mom replied. “He promises to clean away any sin from our lives when we confess it and ask for forgiveness.”

Hudson frowned. “Does that mean every time I sin, I’m not saved anymore until I say I’m sorry and ask for forgiveness?”

Mom shook her head. “No, Hudson. Because we’ve trusted Jesus to save us, we belong to Him, and nothing we do could ever separate us from Him. We’ll always be His children—just like you’ll always be my child, even when you have dirty shoes. When we realize we’ve been tracking sin around, we need Him to wash it away.”

Hudson smiled. “I’m glad Jesus will always forgive me when my life gets dirty with sin—just like you forgave me for tracking mud in the kitchen!”

–Richard S. Maffeo

How about you? Have you done something that’s gotten your life dirty with sin? Even though Jesus has already saved you from sin if you trust in Him, you’ll still struggle with it in your daily life until He comes back and gets rid of sin once and for all. When you sin, confess it to Him right away to keep it from getting in the way of living the way He wants you to. He’ll forgive you and make you clean!

Today's Key Verse: Completely wash away my guilt and cleanse me from my sin. Psalm 51:2 (CSB)

Today's Key Thought: Confess sin and be clean