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1 Generous in love - God, give grace! Huge in mercy - wipe out my bad record. 2 Scrub away my guilt, soak out my sins in your laundry. 3 I know how bad I've been; my sins are staring me down. 4 You're the One I've violated, and you've seen it all, seen the full extent of my evil. You have all the facts before you; whatever you decide about me is fair. 5 I've been out of step with you for a long time, in the wrong since before I was born. 6 What you're after is truth from the inside out. Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life. 7 Soak me in your laundry and I'll come out clean, scrub me and I'll have a snow-white life. 8 Tune me in to foot-tapping songs, set these once-broken bones to dancing. 9 Don't look too close for blemishes, give me a clean bill of health. 10 God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life. 11 Don't throw me out with the trash, or fail to breathe holiness in me. 12 Bring me back from gray exile, put a fresh wind in my sails! 13 Give me a job teaching rebels your ways so the lost can find their way home. 14 Commute my death sentence, God, my salvation God, and I'll sing anthems to your life-giving ways. 15 Unbutton my lips, dear God; I'll let loose with your praise. 16 Going through the motions doesn't please you, a flawless performance is nothing to you. 17 I learned God-worship when my pride was shattered. Heart-shattered lives ready for love don't for a moment escape God's notice. (Psalm 51:1-17 The Message Bible)
Happy Thursday of the Tremendous kind, ConCafe Family! May it be one filled with awesome joy and tremendous blessings of the God-Kind for you, Friend, is my prayer for you! As we pray, let us take this prayer request to heart; this is from Ms. Felicia Cantu, our Administrative Assistant at the church of Gonzales: "My cousin Kasey Morris' family in Missouri. His wife Monica is in the hospital with Covid-19 and double pneumonia. They have three children, one of which is only 9 months old." May God hear our prayers and bring awesome healing to Monica and safety and protection for their children and all their familyl; in Jesus' name, amen! Also, please pray for a Mother and Daughter from Harlingen, Texas, who today have found they have Stage 4 cancer; Gloria G. Montes, and Neri M. Duran. These are women of faith as are we and we pray in the Lord Jesus' name for their healing and comfort! Pray for one another. Pray for yourselves, too!
I love having a washing machine and a dryer in our home. I like wearing and smelling clean clothes. I like washing clothes when I need to; but I strongly dislike having to go to a washeteria. Don't get me wrong, they exist for a reason, one which I well know and as a batchelor from 18 until I married at 25, I depended heavily on coin-operated machines to make my clothes clean. My Mom taught me to do my own laundry as I left home for college. And I quickly discovered where the laundrymat where one could rop off the clothes and have them washed and dried by others. Being a very private person I opted to not have the attendants fold my clothes. (Think Kevin in Home Alone 2 when his laundry is being delievered to him in the hotel!) I like what most washing machines can do to dirty clothes. I prefer the shower for myself, but sometimes, like David in the above passage, I have thought that maybe a cycle or two in a Maytag might not be bad for my sins. And David agrees, for he wrote this passage after his encounter with God through Nathan. While in yesterday's passage he might not have seemed so broken, he really was, as evidenced by what he penned. Look at verse two again, "Scrub away my guilt, soak out my sins in your laundry." Have I ever mentioned that I am a fountain pen guy? I fell in love with fountain pens in elementary school when Schaffer made the 97-cent see-throughs that students could buy almost anywhere. I love how the pen leaves an ink trail on the right paper and I also like how it tends to leave messy stains on my fingers and hands. And yes, even sometimes my shirts, so David's "Scrub away," really hits home. David is aware of his dirty soul from the sins of his actions. Only God's Laundry can do the job of complete stain removal. And David is aware of this as he writes in verse 7; "Soak me in your laundry and I'll come out clean, scrub me and I'll have a snow-white life." I never watched any episode of As The World Turns, but I highly doubt there was dialogue like this on it. And I don't think it's what sells soap. Ironic.
This is gospel good news before Jesus even made His appearance on earth! It was precisely why the crowds lined up to hear the funny dressed prophet by the Jordan River who was baptizing the un-baptizable with the forgiveness of sins! People realized they were in need of forgiveness and while the Jordan, not known for its clear or clean waters, was just the place in which to soak like laundry at the hands of John the Baptist, who as God's messenger had the authority to wash all who approached him and God. Those who did get the dunking had their life sentences commuted and found in God the Savior we all need; one who can take us right where we are and take us to the heavenly places where we belong. Living life all caked in mud just doesn't feel right, does it? Can you imagine living a sin-mucked life? Nah, I don't want to, nor do I want that for you or me! It's enough to make us walk to the big Westinghouse and crack open the lid and slide right now and put the knob on Soak! But, the good news is that we don't have to! All we have to do is make that our prayer and trust in the Lord! He will do the rest!
PRAYER: Abba, Father, in Jesus' name we pray for healing for those mentioned above, and for ourselves. Remove the Covid and Cancer from these dear sisters and from us the sin-stains we carry in our spirits; remove them and make us whole and clean before You. Grant to us the joy and "Foot-tapping songs" to dance our way into joy and the fullness of life; for we pray in Jesus' strong name, amen!
Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! Be an example of love to the one who does not yet know the fullness of love!
Receive my blessings of joy and freedom,
Pastor Eradio Valverde
