LIFE - The newness of true life!

WITHOUT SPOT OR BLEMISH! [Romans 3:23; Cleanliness, Consecration, Holiness, Righteousness, Sin]

Any one who has traveled to Switzerland immediately notices how spotlessly clean the country seems to be – from their snow capped mountains, to their crystal-pure lakes, from their alpine glades to their doll-like villages.

Even their money seems spotless and to crackle with crispness; every bill looking and feeling new. Old bills are plucked from circulation before they rip or even the hint of a stain can disgrace them. Each year around one-third of all Swiss bank notes are removed from the public’s grasp at a cost of over 20 million Swiss francs (roughly $15 million). The old bills are burned in a furnace.

Why do they bother, why can’t they be more like the British or the Americans? Because, says the chief cashier of the Swiss National Bank, “The first thing you see when you arrive … is the money. It’s like a national identity.” [Adapted from an article by Bhushan Bahree in The Wall Street Journal]

In other words, the Swiss take their image very seriously. This causes me to ask, “What if God wanted a spotlessly clean world like the Swiss want a spotlessly clean country?”

What if God decided to pluck up people before they became too stained or blemished by life? What if one-third of the human race was shuffled off to heaven and hell each year because of the blotch of sin on their lives? After all, the first thing you see when you arrive is people in the delivery room.

The reasons He doesn’t are simple: first, “God so loved the world”; second, “God sent His Son” while we were sin blotched; third, the Good News would not be good news at all; and, fourth, God expects us to keep our-selves unstained from the world [James 1:27; 1 John 2:15-17; 1 Peter 1:13-19]. This doesn’t even address the implied promises in Isaiah 42:1-4.

How sad the Body of Christ has more problems with its image than Switzerland has with its.