Dear Fellowship of the Burning Heart:

Beyond the bronze altar in the courtyard sat the bronze laver filled with water, used by the priests as they moved between their ministry at the altar and their ministry in the holy place. They would continually wash as they went from one place to the other. The laver would serve as a constant reminder of the need for continual cleansing.

Cleansing is a constant need and continual challenge. We live in a dirty world, physically, psychologically, morally, and spiritually. And its filth is unavoidable. We are born into a dirty world filled with the filth and stench of sin, and we are tainted by the dirt of disobedience. Selfishness and rebellion, marks of the Fall, reveal themselves early. Those marks continue to characterize our lives until we are cleansed from their filth.

The foundation for our spiritual cleansing is the blood of Jesus Christ. “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses (is cleansing) us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). Walking in the light is a condition of fellowship. We are children of the light. We are done with groping in the darkness. Others love the darkness rather than the light because their deeds are evil. They won’t come to the light because they are afraid their works will be exposed. We are not afraid of the light because we want the source of our works to be revealed (John 3:19-21). The God who brought light into existence has shone his light in our hearts to give the light of knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:6). His light purifies us.

The channel of cleansing is confession. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Now, we must honestly fess up. We must not deceive ourselves by thinking that we are ok, that we have not been tainted or infected by the filth of the world. We do not deceive others. They recognize the smudges and stench of sin. The truth is not in us, because we refuse to admit that we need cleansing. We must also recognize the ways in which sin has affected and infected us: the wretched attitudes, the selfish emotions, the hurtful words, and the harmful actions that are both self-destructive and damaging to others. We cannot be truly cleansed, if we don’t agree about what has caused our moral and spiritual filth. If we don’t agree with God about what sin is and how wrong it is, we are simply calling him a liar, and reveal that we don’t believe what his word says about sin (1 John 1:7, 10).

If our desire to draw near to God is genuine, then this cleansing from sin is mandatory. Hebrews 10:22:   “let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” Fortunately,

There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins,
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains.