The Ultimate Sanitizer

No one is exempt from the redeeming powers of grace.

One day when I was subbing at a local elementary school, a little boy in my fourth grade class, approached me with a panic-stricken look on his face. He was a sweet child who was always polite and followed directions. The students were in the process of working on a social studies project which required them to use Sharpie markers.

When I asked him what was wrong, he told me in a trembling voice that he had accidentally gotten Sharpie on his desk. He assured me that it was an accident, but he was clearly terrified of getting into trouble.

I told him not to worry, that hand sanitizer, which is a part of every elementary classroom, would take it right off. I could tell that he wanted to believe me, but he didn’t, not completely anyway.

So, I showed him. I took the bottle of sanitizer and squirted it on the desk and voila! It came right off with a paper towel, just as I had promised. You should have seen the relief on his face as he thanked me several times. He was thrilled and there was a bounce back in his step.

I thought about that incident for several days afterwards. The boy obviously had doubts, that I could clean up his mistake, even though I had assured him I could.

It’s kind of like that with the concept of grace for many of us, isn’t it?

Jesus died for us so that we could be forgiven. He died for us so that we could be redeemed. He died for us so that we could approach the throne with confidence.

The Bible says, “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” Hebrews 4:16

We’re all sinners. We all make mistakes. We all fall short. The problem is that sometimes we decide to think that our particular sins are in Sharpie, while everyone else’s are in pencil or even worse, we sometimes feel that our own sins are in pencil and someone else’s are in Sharpie.

But, grace was never intended for a select few, no matter what we may have been told along the way and there is no sin exempt from the forgiveness granted to us by the cross. We also don’t have to scrub our fingers to the bone to remove that sin and earn that forgiveness. In fact, we can’t.

All we have to do is repent and ask Jesus to forgive us and He will. Just like I wiped that desk clean for that little boy, He will wipe our slate clean and give us a fresh new start, no matter the type of ink we used. He’s the ultimate Sanitizer.

That little boy’s mistake reminded me. Perhaps you needed reminding too.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂