Whiter Than Snow

Snow falls freshly in our area and sparkles under the streetlamps at night, glistening even more brightly under sunlight. To know that each snowflake is a crystal wonder, each one being unique and marvelous, although there are billions, is awe-inspiring. And who can’t help but remember the promise of God… “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow” (Isaiah 1:18). 

The reason we need a Savior from sin is because not one of us can cleanse our own heart from it… “Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow… blot out all my guilt. Create in me a clean heart, O God,” is a prayer that is answered only by the precious blood of Christ… “He loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood” (Revelation 1:5).

Jesus told of two men who prayed outside the Temple. One trusted in his own righteousness to be clean before God. He prayed aloud so all could hear, rehearsing all his ritual obedience and good works, and even thanking the Lord that he wasn’t like “other sinners.” But the other man, a humble tax-collector who felt unworthy to even lift his eyes toward Heaven, prayed, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner” (Luke 18:10-14). He was saying, “I can’t clean myself, I need the blood of the Ram, sprinkled on the Mercy-Seat, to wash me.”  Jesus said the tax-collector went home “justified.”

Every repentant sinner, like the tax-collector, who looks to Christ alone for cleansing from sin, is promised that He will present us faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.” (Jude 1:24). And although we live in a sin-sick and filthy world, the Bible asks us… “Have you entered into the treasures of the snow?”

(Devotional by Lisa Cataford)