You get scraped and flossed and polished, and sent home with squeaky clean teeth and instructions to maintain them. You must floss. You really must. And brush like this. Are you happy with the cosmetic appearance of your teeth?
But you still have to dutifully go back in six months’ time, or in a year (or four, if you’re anything like me). No matter how much you clean your teeth or how many products and methods you use, it is never enough. You can’t keep them clean to the dental hygienist’s standards.
Which is true of our lives in general too, of course. We can try to clean up our act, impose rules on our behaviour, really discipline ourselves – but we never truly win without Jesus. We certainly can’t reach God’s perfect standards on our own.
But in Jesus, God does more than scrape away the surface dirt and shine us up on the outside. He gives us a new heart and makes us clean on the inside.
“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” (Ezekiel 36:25-27)
God purifies us and we are made righteous once and for all, although we are still works in progress. And we daily return to him, not to have him dust off the excess of our selfish behaviour, but to remember Christ’s perfectly clean sacrifice on our behalf, and to submit to him once again.
