Clean Hands, Clean Heart - Martin Wiles

Therefore the Lord has recompensed me according to my righteousness, According to the cleanness of my hands in His sight. Psalm 18:24 NKJV

My hands weren’t clean, but I imagined they were.

“Wash up for dinner” was a directive I rarely if ever heard while growing up. It wasn’t that my family was nasty. Far from it. Both of my parents were “clean freaks.” At least my mom. But for some reason, I wasn’t told to wash my hands before eating. Perhaps because they were never dirty in the first place. I had inherited my parents’ cleanliness gene. I didn’t like dirt or anything sticky on my hands. So I suppose my parents imagined my hands were clean all the time. No reason to tell me to wash them before eating. In their mind, I had already washed them for some other reason.

But my parents also believed a few germs would never hurt anyone. Germs would help build my immune system—which in fact was a correct philosophy on my parents’ part. If I wanted to play in the dirt or handle dirty things and then eat, that was perfectly acceptable. Or if I dropped food on the floor or on the ground and then put it in my mouth, that too was okay—within limits. My parents weren’t neglectful. Nor would they ever put me in a dangerous situation.

Overall, I was a clean child, so there was no need to overly worry about cleaning me up. The psalmist considered himself clean—even righteous. But he wasn’t self-righteous. God had taken care of his sin, declared him clean, and was now going to deliver him from his enemies’ tactics. The coming deliverance wasn’t based on anything the psalmist had done—or deserved. It was based solely on who God was.

My righteousness comes the same way as the psalmist’s did. I don’t brag about it because I didn’t do anything to deserve it. Nor is it based on anything I did or could do. Rather, my righteousness issues from what Christ did on Calvary’s cross and my request that the benefits be applied to my life. God declared me righteous because of what His sinless Son did.

God will deliver me in life and death because I’m righteous, but all the credit goes to Him. I can’t wash up; only He can clean me up.

If He hasn’t already, let God wash you and make you clean.  

Prayer: Father, thank You making us clean through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. 

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