A KITCHEN SECRET
/A few days ago, I cut up some apples into a glass dish, added a little honey, and put them in the oven to bake. When I came back 25 minutes later to check on them, they’d turned into “apple crisp”! The apples and honey had “bonded” to the glass as “forever friends,” or so I feared. “Separating them” was not going to be fun!!! …until I remembered a secret someone had shared with me a short time ago.
Following instructions, I sprinkled salt on the bottom and sides of the baking dish and added a small amount of water. After this solution sat for a few hours, a miracle happened! Ninety percent of the gooey stuff had loosened. I applied the salt one more time and in minutes the glass was clean! No scraping, no hard scrubbing, no digging crust out of corners, no “elbow grease”!
Oh, that all of life’s messes could be cleaned up that easily!
It reminds me of God’s grace and his forgiveness. We don’t have to scrub ourselves clean before we come to Jesus! If we confess our wrong doing, he is faithful to forgive us (1 John 1:9).
Following instructions, I sprinkled salt on the bottom and sides of the baking dish and added a small amount of water. After this solution sat for a few hours, a miracle happened! Ninety percent of the gooey stuff had loosened. I applied the salt one more time and in minutes the glass was clean! No scraping, no hard scrubbing, no digging crust out of corners, no “elbow grease”!
Oh, that all of life’s messes could be cleaned up that easily!
It reminds me of God’s grace and his forgiveness. We don’t have to scrub ourselves clean before we come to Jesus! If we confess our wrong doing, he is faithful to forgive us (1 John 1:9).
I can just see Jesus in the kitchen at the sink, his sleeves rolled up, hands in hot water, up to his elbows in soap suds. After he scrubs a plate clean, he holds it up to the light, sees his own reflection in the plate and says, “There Father, now this one can have fellowship with us!”
The night before he died, Jesus washed the disciples’ feet. Today Jesus doesn’t use soap and hot water (although sometimes it takes getting into "hot water" before we are ready to turn to him). It cost him much more than a few bottles of dish soap to get us clean. He paid with his blood on the Cross. “But if we are living in the light of God’s presence, just as Christ is, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from every sin” (1 John 1:7).
The next time I do dishes, I will remember to say, “Thank you, Jesus, for washing me clean!”
