I always sit behind Koral's family in Sunday AM and PM worship services. She's four and a half and pretty awesome. I see her at school, too, but I'm not sure she has reached the point of understanding I'm the same person from church. Her dad works with me and her mom is the quintessential volunteer private schools depend on. I've taught her two older sisters and coached her slightly older brother in basketball camp. Several years ago, I wrote a sweet blog about Koral decorating my hand with stickers one night at our evening assembly. Like I said, she is the definition of adorable.
Often, Koral is facing me in service as, like many small ones, she uses the pew bench as a working table. About three weeks ago, she did something that greatly impressed me. We were congregationally singing and she pitched right in with the repeating phrase:
Nothing but the blood of Jesus!
I was amazed she knew the line- maybe she was simply repeating what she heard- but I thought it was pretty neat for a child her age. I was always good at memorizing songs we sang in worship but I can't pinpoint when it began. But I love that she loves a song I loved when I was small.
When I was growing up, there were songs I would classify as invitation songs, meaning they were usually sung right after the sermon and the congregation was invited to ask for prayers/confess sins and for those not yet baptized, to be immersed. (I was immersed by Dad in the spring of my seventh grade year- wish I could recall the invitation song that morning!) Three of my favorite hymns of that nature all had the same theme and as I meditate on them, I realize they all have this in common- they all are questions.
What can wash away my sin?
Would you be free from the burden of sin?
Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power?
But the answers to all three are the same, with different phrasing:
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
There's power in the blood.
The last of the three is an answer worded as a question:
Are you washed in the blood of the lamb?
Those three lines are repeated throughout the hymns. And they should be. The blood of Jesus, the ultimate sacrifice cleanses us from the filth of our sin. The question will always be whether we have chosen to accept this precious gift. The answer is simple; you can even ask a four year old I know.
Applicable quote of the day:
Only the blood of Jesus can cleanse us, yet if we withhold ourselves from that blood, we will be unclean forever.
A.W. Tozer
God bless,
Steve
Luke 18:1
www.hawleybooks.com
E-mail me at steve@hawleybooks.com
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