Dirty Coffee Cup

1 John 1:6-7 – If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. 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, purifies us from all sin. (NIV)

One of the coffee cups I have in my office is a white one. I like to drink coffee at work, so my cup gets some good use. I am also lazy because I do not like to wash my coffee cup. As a result of this, the cup gets to looking pretty nasty, with the coffee stains on it. When my wife came to visit me for lunch on occasion, and saw that cup sitting on my desk, she was "grossed out". She said the cup was nasty and that it should be washed, so she would take it home and wash it. I soon had a nice clean, white coffee cup on my desk, at least for awhile.

To overcome this nasty coffee cup syndrome, I now have a black coffee cup on my desk. With this cup it is very difficult to see the coffee stains in it, so it does not look so nasty, but the truth is that it is still just as stained as my white one ever was. The only difference now is that I am hiding those stains.

Can this also happen in our Christian walk? Sometimes I have acted as if I am the black coffee cup. I have sinned, and felt that I could hide my sin. As I have matured in faith, I see that there is no hiding one's sin when one is walking in the light. So just as the white coffee cup cannot hide the stains, if we walk in the light our sins are not hidden. The great part is that when we walk in the light, we are also purified by the blood of Jesus Christ. As I walk in the light now, I know that I am forgiven of my sins. Those stains can be cleaned away by Jesus. When I was younger I felt that if I hid my activities in the darkness no one would be able to see those activities. While I may have fooled some, the fact remained that those stains were still present. It was not until the love of God saved me that I became able to come out of the darkness and walk in the light.

Prayer: Our God and our Father, we are so thankful that you gave your only begotten Son to die for us so that we may be purified before you. May we live lives which are pleasing to you and which glorify you. In Jesus' name. Amen.