As No Earthly Launderer Could

Faith Presses On ^ | Self/Erika Schwibs

[Faith Presses On]

In the worldy, economic sense, the U.S. dollar has often been referred to in recent times as "the cleanest dirty shirt":

Fortune, July 2022: "Why is the dollar dominating? Because the U.S. is" the cleanest dirty shirt. "

Asia Times, September 2022: "Analyst Louis-Vincent Gave at Gavekal Research observes that 'in a dangerous world, the reason for the US dollar' s super-charged performance over the last year has been investors' view that it is the 'cleanest dirty shirt' in a smelly pile of laundry.'"

In the spiritual sense, who or what has the "cleanest dirty shirt" in the world?

The Christian church, of course.

That's the chief admission of a genuine Christian: that our "shirt" is hopelessly dirtied by our sin, with no hope to ever get it clean ourselves. We need to be provided a clean wardrobe by God Himself. Similarly, our own dirty clothing is our biggest problem and not the dirty clothes of others.

But it's only through faith in the spiritual that we can see that every human being, including ourselves, naturally has a dirty shirt. The natural man and the spiritual man are at enmity with each other. A person is blind in the spiritual realm the more that he or she denies its existence and chooses to live only through the natural, as if God doesn't exist. In a word, atheism. The shirts of other people different from himself, especially Christians, are dirty to the natural man, but his own shirt is pretty good by comparison.

The natural, God-denying man actually believes himself to have, if not a clean shirt, then "the cleanest dirty shirt." That's because "all the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes..." (Proverbs 16:2). The hardened unbeliever believes that he's supreme morally and intellectually. He believes he's achieved this exalted status himself. He hears the word, but isn't interested in being a doer of it, even in pretense or pride. So he doesn't even use the mirror God has given him to see the state of his clothing.

"But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was," (James 1:22-24).

That makes for incompatibility between believers and unbelievers. "Can two walk together, except they be agreed?" (Amos 3:3). And it shouldn't be forgotten that the Laodicean Christian often isn't too far off in heart and mind from the unbeliever.

The Christian life in this world is about laundering our dirty laundry and exchanging it one day, once and for all, for the white robes earned for us by our savior.

We don't need to despair because we are credited with having the perfectly clean robes of the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ:

"And his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them," (Mark 9:3).

But we can only have these robes because we recognize the eternal dirtiness of our own, our own inability to either possess a clean shirt or to launder it to cleanliness ourselves. We can't do anything for it but receive it:

"And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment. And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen," (Matthew 22:11-14).

And we must follow Christ through whatever suffering we're to endure with Him in carrying our cross:

"After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands," (Revelation 7:9).

"And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb," (Revelation 7:13-14).

We cannot provide the "laundry soap" ourselves. The "soap" that gives us new life and eternal life with God is the blood of the Lamb.

Unbelievers have no solution to the problem of their dirty shirt. They don't even recognize their problem. The dirtiness is only on other people.

As Christians, we can confess the dirtiness of our natural attire, and confess that the only launderer in the universe who can take away the stains of sin is Christ. We can tell other people about Him, and point the way to Him. On Sundays, we can come together to discuss the problem of man's dirty clothing, continually own it as our own, and rejoice in the eternal clean robes provided for us by God in His Son. And that's why, even in this world, Christians who love the Lord in sincerity still have, overall, the cleanest dirty shirts.

[higgmeister]

Bump for later...

hg has radar

[alexander_busek]

Am disappointed! Article starts out in a very promising fashion, like it is going to offer us some actionable financial advice - and then goes south, into sanctimonious "churchy" territory.

Switch-and-bait!

Regards,

[Babba Gi]

I’d use this in Children’s Church, but it’s not theologically sound. It’s also too long to fit on a sampler.

[Cincinnatus.45-70]

Thanks, Faith. It’s a fine message that all of us need to hear.

[Ezekiel]

If Jesus believed the settled doctrines, he wouldn't be able to recognize himself. It would explain much of the motivation behind the massive, collective effort.

 We cannot provide the "laundry soap" ourselves. The "soap" that gives us new life and eternal life with God is the blood of the Lamb.

Unbelievers Christians have no solution to the problem of their dirty shirt. They don't even recognize their problem. The dirtiness is only on other people.

At some point, the false humility righteousness mantra is going to become too old to salvage.

The broad road to soul destruction is thousands of programming lanes of wide, yet few ever catch on in order to look *up* for the exit. The message up there says to look down to the reality on the ground:

The religious establishment lanes are where everyone is right because it's all those other people who are in the wrong lanes. "Defending the faith" has become the spiritual analog to aggressive driving and road rage. The way of peace they do not know.

There are regular stories about map apps that send trusting drivers into hazardous wilderness roads of no return, or permanently into a ravine. But it's okay not to look up when it's a religious program. Don't be an unbeliever... keep the faith! /s

It's like cable TV: 500 channels and nothing's on, but to suggest turning it off is fightin' words.

The actual Jesus of the Bible is the maverick solution to business, which is the simple way that doesn't require a library full of expert deceptions. I am = WYSIWYG = honesty, sincerity. whole-heartedness. A man after God's own heart.

It's not complicated: treat others as you wish to be treated -- going forward with patience and grace, instead of building a Can't-Do foundation sniffing for wrongthink 24/7. David knew not to fall into the hands of man. Brutal. Relentless. Without mercy. Nothing's ever perfect enough. Then man turns around and accuses God of holding to humanity's impossible definition of perfection.

What's impossible with men is possible with God.

But a man with a message like that is really bad for business. Follow him and he actually leads by his loving example. He shows the hopelessly paralyzed with fear that it's okay, your sins are forgiven so can go ahead and on get up now. No wonder he was tailed by the experts. They were on alert for anything that didn't conform to their settled doctrines, because otherwise people might get ideas and reject bondage. Well, when the HOA grass blade measuring jobs dried up in the summer, the keen observers needed something to do.

***

Remove the shackles of learned, generational dependency and accomplish something for real, and something good is bound to happen all over the planet. Those kicking the "Can" down the road have no excuse. But wait...all those doom and gloom preachers can't be wrong! They are correct, just not in the way they intended. Game Over for the sunshine thieves. Nobody's perfect so buh-bye (just applying their own standards to their works.)

"Works don't save!" say the devotees of union boss establishment Jesus. "Everybody knows" that work is not in the contract. The fake Establishmant Jesus that Jesus warned everyone about is modeled after, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help." Gee I wonder where big governement got that idea. Gotta keep the temple of merchandise and dependency industry thriving for all the confusion and need for solutions it generates. This creates myriads of jobs where the reward has been disconnected from producing results, i.e. good fruit. Yesterday's solutions are today's problems, and today's solutions are tomorrow's problems, yay!

Enough.

Jesus can lead a man to water and soap and instruct him how to wash, but he can't make him wash, especially when the guy with the overflowing hamper it certain that he has the superior faith of waiting around for laundry maid Jesus.

Haman was hanged on the gallows he built for Mordecai. He never saw it coming.

The Dark Side never learns because it already knows everything already.

The world is a living parable -- the explanation of abstract spiritual concepts by way of down-to-earth analogy. Therefore, those not clued in to the real world can't comprehend the parables. When that happened to the disciples, they asked Jesus so they could find out what they missed. His disciples wanted to learn, understand, and do.

This generation's hare doesn't learn a lesson from the tortoise. He resents and hates the tortoise for making him look bad, so his solution is to demonize, maim, and/or kill the simple, persevering tortoise. Cain-Do!

And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment. And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless.

Absolutely zero comprehension that he was supposed to change into something nice.

Exodus 3:7 And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows;

♫ Put One Foot in Front of the Other (1970) ♫

Stop-motion animation. That hyphen is an important detail:

Terminology

The term "stop motion", relating to the animation technique, is often spelled with a hyphen as "stop-motion". Both orthographical variants, with and without the hyphen, are correct, but the hyphenated one has a second meaning that is unrelated to animation or cinema: "a device for automatically stopping a machine or engine when something has gone wrong".

A clay model of a chicken, designed to be used in a clay stop motion animation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_motion

[Faith Presses On]

It’s still in a rough form. Basically because of the intricate difficulty of discussing some of these issues. What are referring to when you say you don’t see it as theologically sound?

[Faith Presses On]

You’re welcome, Cincinnatus.