Passing by a Laundromat I noticed that someone wrote with a bar of soap on one of the glass windows the words, “I am a sinner saved by grace.” Inside I could see washing machine doing a small load of clothes while an individual sat on a chair surrounded by piles of dirty laundry with socks also soiled hanging over the edge of a laundry basket.
Just a little further down, another window of the Laundromat had written with a bar of soap the words, “A saint, saved by grace.” Here, no individual was seen, the washing machine near by was not running, nor the dryers. Cloths were seen neatly folded in a basket, clean and bright waiting to be picked up.
The individual who sees themselves as a sinner saved by grace is like the person who has dirty laundry piled up on the floor and hanging out of the laundry basket. The individual who identifies sin in their lives and immediately receives cleansing through the shed blood of Jesus on the cross is the one whose laundry is cleaned and folded.
He or she does not allow sin to linger in the hamper of the human heart but deals with it immediately. Sin and it’s guilt and shame is not allowed to pile up like dirty laundry robbing them of the joy of their salvation, nor the power of the gospel through the Holy Spirit operating in their lives. Sin and it’s stain is not allowed to remain on them giving the devil motive for condemnation and defeat.
This is the power that overcomes the world, our faith. You nor I can have faith in the soiled clothing of sin. That is why we must remember that when we sin we must run to Jesus not away from him as he alone can cleanse us of all unrighteousness so we can stand before him blameless. We are to learn to see ourselves as saints not sinners, for we were once sinners until we came to the knowledge of the Son of God. We learn to be quick to putting off of the old and putting on of the new and spending less and less time in the Laundromat of repentance and seeing ourselves as saints.