Doing the Laundry - Hints from Tony Evans

Tony Evans was especially fun recentl! He gave a truly insightful, though homey, illustration about doing the laundry and confessing sin.


When someone is putting clothes into the washing machine, they don't just dump the whole hamper load in -- the one doing the laundry will carefully separate the clump and place each piece in the machine one at a time. If two socks are knotted up together, they will pull them apart - separate them. Socks caught up in the leg of a pair of trousers won't get very clean!

A friend of mine takes her clothing to a commercial laundry and she carries the load in a pillow case. But she doesn't dump them in all at once -- she separates them. Sometimes into different groups for cleaning.

When the items are separated the flow of the water can reach each piece and clean more thoroughly. It's just the right way to do the job.

This is not a profound, philosophical observation. But then Tony compares all this to confession of sin! We shouldn't go to God and say, "Forgive me for all the bad things I did today."

No, we need to separate each one. Tell God what we felt, what we said, how we acted, seeking forgiveness for that one item. Then do it for each sin we remember the Holy Spirit pointing out to us. You know, like He sort of nudges us sometimes right at the onset of our bad behavior. (Of course, that would be a really good time to pray, also, while it is really fresh on our minds.)

And sometimes when the Holy Spirit nudges us early enough we can even refrain from the behavior and then we can pray a prayer of thanksgiving, expressing our gratitude for the warning of the Holy Spirit that kept us from the bad behavior.

It is much more fun expressing gratitude than it is asking forgiveness!

But I guess that means we must keep ourselves sensitive to the Holy Spirit and eager to respond quickly.

In I John 1:9, we are told "if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

I think my favorite word in that verse is "all." We can't usually remember all the sins we have committed. We are not even aware of some. In the Old Testament there were many sacrifices and offerings designated for "unintentional sins."

I think in the New Testament God covered that situation right here in this verse with "all."